Re-set relations with China

In a recent interview in a Chinese media outlet, Ambassador Jing Quan purportedly posed questions to the Philippine government. As roughly translated to English, the ambassador from the People’s Republic of China (PROC) supposedly posed these rhetorical queries:

• Why is the Philippines stirring up tensions?

• What does it stand to gain?

• Can the Philippines spare the consequences and costs of confrontation and conflict?

Speaking in behalf of the Philippine government at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum last Wednesday, Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. replied to each question of the Chinese ambassador.

Teodoro made up his own question-and-answer clap back: “Who’s stirring trouble here? Do they have the right to do these things they have been doing to us? None.”

“What does the Philippines stand to gain for standing up for its rights? We become a country, a true country with all the entitlements of law, all the entitlement of international law.”

On the third and last point, Teodoro strongly asserted this (without translation to give its genuine essence): “Itong statement ni ambassador na ito ay may halong banta. Hindi lang tayo pinangangaralan, nambabanta pa. Kaya naaalibadbaran mga Pilipino sa kanya.”

The beef of Teodoro with Jing came to the fore when the Chinese ambassador visited Batanes earlier this year. And a few weeks later, he recalled, scholars from Jinan University in Guangzhou declared the Batanes islands are natural extension of Taiwan and historically belong to China. Teodoro called them out for such baseless public claims as part of a broader plan to reassert their voided “nine-dash-line” claims.

Just recently, two Philippine Navy personnel were injured after they were accosted by a Chinese militia vessel getting close to the anchored BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal. As the immediate head of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Teodoro echoed the fierce indignation of Filipino military personnel as the civilian official who is their voice and can speak on their behalf.

Teodoro also noted with concern several reported illegal activities linked to foreign entities, including the two Chinese inductive furnace steel plants recently raided and shut down. He warned against foreign maligned influence (FMI), or the insidious fusion or mixing of both the external and internal threats evolving in our country.

Teodoro explained that FMI can include things such as spreading disinformation, secretly funding or influencing political groups or public figures, manipulating public opinion through social media, conducting espionage, interfering in elections or policymaking or using businesses, cultural and educational exchanges and other organizations as fronts.

Teodoro’s staunch defense of the WPS had already earned the ire of Beijing, which declared him persona non grata. Just last year, Beijing also banned from China former senator and now Labor Secretary Francis Tolentino for his supposed “egregious” activities vs China while asserting our WPS claims in two laws he authored.

Now, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) has two Cabinet officials who cannot enter China.

Both Teodoro and Tolentino are experts in international law. At the top of his class when he graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Law in 1989, Teodoro subsequently topped the Bar exams in 1989. He later earned his Master of Laws from Harvard University and is also admitted to the New York State Bar.

Teodoro served first as Tarlac congressman for three consecutive terms until 2007. Former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recruited him to join her Cabinet as defense secretary from 2007 to 2009. He resigned a year before Mrs. Arroyo fielded him as her administration’s presidential standard-bearer in the May 2010 elections.

Unfortunately, “necro politics” dealt a hard blow to his presidential bid. His first cousin, the late president Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, won over him and eight other rivals. As the Lakas-KAMPI candidate, Teodoro placed fourth behind former president Joseph Estrada and ex-Senate president Manny Villar.

When he returned to politics a decade later, Teodoro ran for a senatorial berth in the May 2022 national elections. However, he lost under the Senate ticket of the People’s Reform Party. On June 5, 2023, or a year after the ban on appointing former election candidates lapsed, PBBM named Teodoro as his defense secretary.

Incidentally, PBBM re-appointed last month Teodoro’s wife, former Tarlac Congresswoman Nikki Prieto-Teodoro, as the Philippine Representative to the United Nations Children Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

In the latest nationwide opinion survey, Teodoro scored 85.2 percent in the “index of governance” among the administration’s top-performing Cabinet members. The survey done from July 12 to 19 placed Teodoro fifth best performing from among the 23 Marcos Cabinet officials.

But Teodoro proudly cited the historic high 79 percent trust rating of the AFP in the survey results released recently by another polling firm. “So the number five is not as important to me as the 79 percent trust rating of the AFP. That is more important,” Teodoro enthused.

In yet another survey on voters’ preference for the May 2028 senatorial elections done by Octa Research, Teodoro landed at No.29 among the identified 40 senatoriables. The survey done from July 4 to 11 this year, Teodoro ranged from 19th to 37th rank if the senatorial elections were held during that period.

“Eh kung 29 ka lang, mangangarap ka di ba? 29 ka lang eh. Tutukan ko muna ang trabaho,” Teodoro quipped.

“If an opportunity arises and I see that there is a viable road ahead in the crossroads, when it comes the time, I’ll make a decision. But I’ll not force it to happen,” Teodoro clarified.

Thus, the 62-year-old Teodoro could not be drawn into talking about politics while deeply focused on his job at the DND-AFP, for now.

Referring to Jing as “that ambassador,” Teodoro directed Malacañang’s call to “reset” Philippine relations with China to Beijing’s chief representative at the Chinese embassy. Teodoro himself speaks Mandarin very well. After all, he was educated in an exclusive Chinese language-based high school.