Teodoro hits China warning on PH alliance with US

Philippine Navy warships BRP Gregorio Del Pilar (PS15) and BRP Jose Rizal (FF150), along with the USS Gabriel Gifford (LCS 10) conduct tactical maneuvers in the West Philippine Sea on November 23,2023, (Photo from the Armed Forces of the Philippines

MANILA, Philippines—  The Philippines is not a mouthpiece of any country, according to Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., who on Friday slammed China’s recent warning to the Philippines regarding its military cooperation with the United States (US). 

Teodoro’s pronouncement stemmed from the recent remarks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, saying that “nothing good will come out from opening the door to a predator” — pertaining to the US. 

“I think their worldview is really, really quite limited. That’s why the robotic quality of their statements. I think that characterizing people who do not appropriate parts of the South China Sea as their own, as they do the 10-dash line, speaks loudly of themselves rather than others,” Teodoro said during a press conference with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth on Friday. 

“And there was a colatilla to that, I believe, that the Philippines should not be a mouthpiece of any other country. You know, that’s once again the product of a limited worldview of a closed society,” he added. 

“We don’t practice propaganda in this country. We practice free speech and democracy. So the Philippines is not a mouthpiece unlike they themselves who are mouthpieces of Xi Jinping thought. You know, the problem is you will hear me, the United States will hear me, the Filipinos will hear me. But one billion or more Chinese won’t get to hear what I said,” he further asserted. 

Earlier, Hegseth said the US military is “posturing forward” in the Indo-Pacific region, including the Philippines, to reestablish deterrence in the face of growing regional tensions over Beijing’s aggression in the South China Sea (SCS).

Beijing asserts sovereignty in almost the entire SCS, including most of the West Philippine Sea.

In 2012, Manila and Beijing had a tense standoff over Panatag Shoal, with the former withdrawing its ships from the shoal, which led to the latter having effective control of its lagoon to date. 

A year later, Manila lodged an arbitration case against Beijing which led to a historic 2016 arbitral award that effectively rejected the latter’s sweeping claims in the West Philippine Sea through its nine-dash line, now ten-dash-line after the inclusion of another line in the eastern section of Taiwan in 2023.