President Rodrigo R. Duterte maintains a two-track approach to our relationship with PROC; one, to grow our healthy economic, trade and investment relationships, and to ensure that our arbitral rights in the WPS are not compromised, more so now through the newly established bilateral consultation mechanism to manage disputes in the area.
With all due respect to the Senior Associate Justice, Chinese island-building and military deployment activities on certain features in the West Philippine Sea have been ongoing for some years now.
The disputes in the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea are not the sum total our relations with China, but we are cognizant of the warmer relationships we have in the region.
