"Persona non grata"

Who is more of a persona non grata, the Chinese ambassador who is only doing his job to defend and uphold his government's interests, or the two senators and seven of their allies who are betraying the trust of the Filipino people by proposing to surrender the Kalayaan Island Group to China?

In ordinary parlance, a person may be blacklisted by a locality as a highly-undesirable visitor and may be ostracized by a group of citizens or local government for being offensive, ungrateful, and notoriously obnoxious. In international law, any sovereign state may declare any alien as persona non grata in order to express its outrage at what that undesirable alien represents or has manifested.

There was a strong clamor to declare the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines as persona non grata. But the president stood firm that we need to exercise utmost restraint in order to preserve our highly-delicate diplomatic relations with the Peoples' Republic of China. The current standoff in the West Philippine Sea, and the Philippines' many acts and pronouncements against Beijing and in favor of Washington, D.C. and Taiwan are a "de facto” strain in such highly-sensitive foreign relations.

Nonetheless, the island municipality of Kalayaan proceeded with its resolution to declare Chinese ambassador Jing Quan persona non grata. The Sangguniang Bayan of Kalayaan, during its January 27, 2026 session, has passed a unanimous resolution condemning the declarations of said ambassador which directly attacked Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela's firm and uncompromising pronouncements in defense of our territorial integrity and national sovereignty.

It has been reported that Chinese ambassador Jing Quan and the Chinese Embassy allegedly engaged in a blatant interference in the Philippine government's internal functions and national affairs by unabashedly demanding that the Philippine government hold Commodore Tariela accountable for his supposed explicit and categorical statements that were allegedly offensive to China. There is a legal basis to declare the ambassador a persona non grata but the president has a political reason not to.

Under Article 9 of the Vienna Convention, any foreign diplomat deployed to any host government may be declared an unwelcome visitor for various reasons, like blatantly insulting the host country or any of its officials, or making highly offensive statements that touches on very sensitive issues against the law of the land or against its cherished ideals, morals and traditions.

The Kalayaan resolution expressed a stern admonition against the audacity of the Chinese ambassador in attempting supposedly to intimidate the good commodore, who is only performing his patriotic duty to defend the legitimate interests of the Philippine government and the Filipino people. To our mind, the local legislative body of that tiny LGU has manifested a more appropriate action compared to the minority in the Philippine Senate.

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, specifically its Article 9, provides that a receiving state, like the Philippines, may well "at any time and without having to explain its decisions" declare any diplomat a persona non grata. When the said person is declared as such, he shall then be deemed unacceptable to the host country and should thus be recalled by his government.

If the receiving state has enough political will and strong motivation to uphold its own dignity, the host government may go to the extent "to refuse to recognize the person concerned as a member of the mission" of the sending country. Under Articles 41 and 42 of the Vienna Convention, because foreign diplomats are immune from prosecution for violating the receiving state's civil and criminal laws, they are as "quid pro quo" duty bound to respect national laws and regulations.

It is recalled that the same municipal council of Kalayaan sometime in 2023 also declared Chinese Ambassador Huang Xillian persona non grata in response to the August 2023 Second Thomas Shoal standoff as a manifestation of the LGU's condemnation of the Chinese unauthorized intrusion into the area. We should always remember that Kalayaan covers the disputed Spratlys Islands.

Perhaps the same municipal council should start thinking of declaring the nine senators who love China more and the Philippines less as persona non grata to Kalayaan and to the rest of the 117 million Filipinos.