Tarriela hits politicians mum on West Philippine Sea issues

Commodore Jay Tarriela, Spokesperson of the Philippine Coast Guard for the West Philippine Sea, speaks to the members of the media during a news forum in Quezon City on May 4, 2024. INQUIRER.net file photo / ARNEL TACSON

MANILA, Philippines — Politicians who are quiet when it comes to China’s actions in the West Philippine Sea but very vocal in defending embattled religious leader Pastor Apollo Quiboloy should have their priorities checked.

Commodore Jay Tarriela, who is the Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, made the thinly veiled swipe at Vice President Sara Duterte and his father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, who both slammed the police for what they deemed as “excessive” force.

More than a hundred policemen stormed Quiboloy’s compound in Davao City to look for Quiboloy, who has become a fugitive from the law after evading a string of arrest warrants issued by courts in Davao and Pasig cities.

“They never had any comments when the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard were subjected to inhumane and barbaric harassment while carrying out a medical evacuation in Ayungin Shoal,” Tarriela said in a post of X (formerly Twitter).

Tarriela was referring to the May 19 resupply mission when China Coast Guard (CCG) personnel aboard two rigid-hull inflatable boats, which managed to come as close as five to ten meters from the BRP Sierra Madre, intercepted one of the four packages airdropped by a military aircraft for the troops there. CCG also obstructed the transport of a sick naval personnel conducted the same day.

“However, when the mansion of the fugitive Pastor Quiboloy was surrounded by the Philippine National Police, they had lengthy statements and even criticized the police’s efforts to arrest him,” he pointed out.

Former president Duterte, accused of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court for being the chief architect of a drug war which claimed thousands of lives, decried the “overkill” response of the police against Quiboloy.

Duterte’s daughter — who is also the concurrent education secretary also linked by a self-confessed Davao Death Squad gunman as the “instigator” of “Oplan Tokhang” that led to a spate of summary killings and police abuses nationwide — also called for a just and humane law enforcement in their bailiwick.

“I find such [a] reaction paradoxical, and it makes one question where their loyalty and interests really lie,” Tarriela said.