Senator Panfilo Lacson said Tuesday he was calling for a review of diplomatic ties between the Philippines and China as tensions over reefs and outcrops in the West Philippine Sea continued to fester.
Lacson, who chairs the Senate national defense panel, said the chamber should back Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., who told China to "get the f*ck out" of the Philippines exclusive economic zone.
“Maybe a review of the country’s diplomatic relations is timely and called for. All the diplomatic protests that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs filed have been ignored as if nothing was filed at all," the senator said.
"The continued incursions and bullying finally got his goat. The Senate must support him in this regard," he added.
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Also on Monday, the DFA said it filed two new diplomatic protests against China, part of near daily diplomatic maneuvers since Chinese ships were spotted off Philippine reefs last March.
Eleven senators across party lines recently filed a resolution condemning China's "illegal" activities at the West Philippine Sea.
Lacson said Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, who authored the resolution, virtually accepted two of his proposed amendments, one of which is changing the word "condemning" to "strongly objecting."
“To condemn means some sort of eternal divine punishment. Hence, no matter how unlikely, in case China eases up on its aggressive stance, our condemnation cannot be taken back,” he explained.
The other accepted amendment was to “urge the Department of Foreign Affairs to consider a review of the long existing diplomatic relations between the Philippines and China in order to send a clear message that the incursions into our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in utter disregard of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the rule of law is totally unacceptable.”
Locsin, however, said he would say sorry only to his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, over his "get the f*ck out" remark.
China refuses to recognize a United Nation court's ruling that favored the Philippines and invalidated its vast claims in the South China Sea.
