President Rodrigo Duterte confessed to being a traitor in his latest late Monday night address, his former professor and National Democratic Front of the Philippines chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said.

“In all seriousness, Duterte confessed last night to being a traitor to the Philippines and the Filipino people by admitting that he had deliberately allowed china to violate the sovereign and maritime rights of the Philippines in its exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf in the West Philippine Sea,” Sison in a statement said.

In his address, Duterte said he is afraid that China would wage war on the Philippines if he would insist on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in asserting the country’s sovereign and maritime rights within its exclusive economic zone in the West Philippine Sea.

Duterte said it is China that is in possession of the territory and that Filipinos could only go there to fish meekly.

The President blamed the previous Benigno Aquino government for agreeing to the United States of America solution to back off from a previous standoff with China, to which the Chinese government refused.

“The constructive occupation was completed by the singular act of China not retreating. That is how it is with the international law,” he said.

“You left. That means it is not yours,” Duterte said in Filipino.

“We can retake it only by force. There is no way we can get back what they call the Philippine Sea without any bloodshed…. You know the cost of war, and if we go there and really to find out and assert jurisdiction, I said it would be bloody. It would result in a violence that we cannot maybe win,” Duterte added.

The President said he will only send ships to the area to lay claim when China starts to drill for oil.

‘Cowardly’

Sison said Duterte’s statements are those of an utterly stupid leader who is a shameless coward to China.

“In utter stupidity, coupled with unabashed cowardice and shamelessness, Duterte declares that it is alright for China to take over the maritime features in the West Philippine Sea and turn them into artificial islands and military bases so long as China merely engages in fishing and exploiting the marine resources and does not yet extract the oil and other mineral resources under the West Philippine Sea,” Sison said.

Sison said it is not true that only through war would the Philippines be able to assert its sovereignty in the area.

“The Philippines is not limited to either waging a war or making related or making diplomatic protests to China. It can file complaints to and demand rulings and action from the concerned UN agencies and international courts against China’s acts of aggression, invasion and occupation of the maritime features in the West Philippine Sea,” he explained.

He added that the Philippines can demand China’s withdrawal from the West Philippine Sea, compensation for damages to the marine environment and rent for the duration of their occupation of the artificial islands and use as Chinese military bases.

“In particular countries where China has fixed and liquid assets, like the US and Western Europe, the Philippines can take legal action to obtain compensation for the damages committed by China. Such compensation can far exceed the amount of onerous loans that the Duterte regime has so far obtained from China,” Sison said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)