MANILA – Three years after the verdict was released, President Rodrigo Duterte will finally raise Manila’s 2016 arbitral victory in his China visit later this month.
Duterte deemed it as about time to raise the ruling during his scheduled one-on-one meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, according to Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo.
“There will be a time that I will invoke the arbitral ruling. This is the time,” Duterte said on Monday.
The United Nations-backed arbitral ruling from The Hague invalidated Beijing’s sweeping maritime claims over the contested West Philippine Sea.
Duterte refused to impose the arbitral ruling with Xi, claiming that he does not want war with China. The president previously said he will bring up the landmark ruling with Beijing before the end of his term.
“That is pursuant to what he said the first time we visited China. He said there will be a time that I will raise this issue and talk about it but not now. The time has come,” Panelo said.
Panelo added Duterte will bring up the 60-40 sharing in the proposed joint oil and gas exploration in the disputed waters.
The West Philippine Sea belongs to the country’s exclusive economic zone, which China claims in near entirety by building islands and militarization efforts in the area./PN