Voters urged: Junk ‘pro-China’ candidates
Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea (WPS) Commodore Jay Tarriela appealed to the public not to vote for “pro-China” candidates in the 2025 national and local elections.
“We know now how we’re being bullied by China. We know how Filipino fishermen continue to struggle to make a living here because of their harassment,” Tarriela said at the Saturday News Forum in Quezon City.
“So if we’re going to elect senators, congressmen or even local government unit executives, let’s make sure none of them will take their seats because they’re pro-China,” Tarriela asked voters.
“Because they’re not pro-Philippines and they don’t consider the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Philippine Coast Guard, and ordinary fishermen.”
While Tarriela clarified that he was not in support of any candidate, he also stressed that if lawmawkers who “didn’t think the West Philippine Sea was a priority” were elected, they can stall the budget of the PCG.
The appeal was in response to a question about whether the Coast Guard’s stance on the West Philippine Sea dispute should be one of the criteria in selecting candidates for the midterm polls.
The comment came after Tarriela’s exchange with SAGIP Party-list Rep. Rodante Marcoleta over the past week, after the latter said there was “no such thing” as the West Philippine Sea.
In 2012, then-President Benigno Aquino III signed an administrative order renaming South China Sea waters within the western section of the country’s EEZ as West Philippine Sea in a bid to further assert Manila’s sovereign rights there amid Beijing’s continuous aggressions.
Aquino also directed the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority to produce and publish charts and maps of the Philippines showing the West Philippine Sea.
Marcoleta is running for a Senate seat on the slate of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP) with the endorsement of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
Duterte famously promised to take the Philippine flag to the West Philippine Sea on a jetski to assert the Philippine sovereignty over the area.
But the former chief executive later backtracked on the remark.
When asked about the “jetski” comment, Tarriela said, “You can no longer deceive the Filipino people that you’ll take a jetski to go to the West Philippine Sea because, for more than three years, we’ve shown to Filipinos what is really the condition in the West Philippine Sea.”
