MANILA – Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV called Alan Peter Cayetano a “political snake” after the Foreign Affairs secretary blamed the former administration for the Philippines “losing control” of the Scarborough shoal.
Trillanes also stressed that the backchannel negotiations he had with China in 2012 aimed at reducing the number of Chinese ships in the contested areas in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) was a success.
In an “open letter” to Benigno Aquino III, Cayetano said the country “lost control” of the contested shoal in the West Philippine Sea and “a great opportunity to expand tourism, infrastructure and agriculture” during the time of the former president.
Cayetano’s comments came in light of Aquino’s advice for the Foreign Affairs secretary to make his politics as “transparent as his hairstyle.”
“The Panatag standoff happened in 2012 during which time Cayetano was still a loyal ally of the Aquino administration, so obviously he never saw anything wrong with how PNoy (Aquino) resolved it then,” Trillanes said on Sunday, using the Filipino name of the shoal.
Trillanes said Cayetano, then a Minority leader in the Senate, “defended” him and his “mission as backchannel negotiator” during negotiations with China under the Aquino administration.
“I had multiple media interviews about it,” Trillanes said. “Again, Cayetano never saw anything wrong with it then.”
Cayetano further commented that the “approach” Trillanes and former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario adopted and implemented lost the country “many opportunities for cooperation in fields like science and technology, protection of the environment, among others.”
Trillanes stressed that his mission as backchannel negotiator in 2012 was “to deescalate the tension in the shoal.”
“Specifically, it entailed the reduction of the number of Chinese ships in the area. The issue of sovereignty was not covered and was never discussed,” said the former Navy officer.
“The negotiations lasted for about three months, at the end of which we were able to reduce the number of Chinese ships in the area to just three, all of which were positioned outside the shoal. In short, I was able to accomplish my mission,” he said.
China’s failure to pull out its remaining three ships from Panatag led to the filing of the arbitration case, which the Philippine won in 2016, Trillanes further said.
“Those are the facts and circumstances about this issue, and I will not allow Cayetano to twist them,” the senator said.
Trillanes also questioned the refusal of the Duterte administration to assert the United Nations arbitration court ruling on the West Philippine Sea.
“Now the question to Cayetano and his boss Duterte is this: ‘Why didn’t you follow through on our historic victory at the arbitration court?’ Or better yet: ‘Why aren’t you fighting for our sovereignty the way you promised during the campaign?” he said./PN
