The Presumptive president of the Republic of the Philippines, President-elect Rody Duterte questioned the national government particularly Pres. Aquino and Sen. Antonio Trillanes on how the Philippines lose the country’s claim of the Scarborough Shoal to the Chinese.
According to Mayor Rody Duterte he was asking the Aquino administration, which he preferred to as the “past,” how it happened too. The presumptive president was qouted as saying “I would like to know from anybody in the executive department of the past administration why we lost the Scarborough Shoal,” Duterte said in a press briefing Monday, “I can take all the insults, the muck and garbage that is part of the territory of politics, but itong ganitong nawalan tayo ng lupa (but to lose our land), or whatever is under the water is lupa (land), I can’t take it,” Duterte said.
The sure winner of the 2016 national election, Mayor Duterte also maintained that the contested territory, Scarborough Shoal, belongs to the Philippines exclusive economic zone (EEC). Mayor Duterte also recalled that Sen. Trillanes by the order of Pres. Aquino initiated a secret “back-channel” talks with the Chinese government that could have only put in jeopardy the Philippine interest over the shoal which is located 124 nautical miles west of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon.
The mayor of Davao City revealed to the media that Sen. Trillanes went to China for 16 times and after the 16th visit, the country lost the Scarborough Shoal and for Mayor Duterte “it’s treason.”
Last May 6, Duterte’s partymates filed treason and espionage charges against Pres. Aquino and Sen. Trillanes for conducting “back-channel talks” with China that allegedly “only advanced (the) interest of our Asian neighbor.”
Duterte’s camp said they had basis for filing the charges as China committed aggression by occupying the country’s territories, an act tantamount to waging a war.
