Duterte says he’ll go to China to talk about arbitral ruling

August 7, 2019

President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday he will go to China to discuss with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping the 2016 arbitral ruling.

"That arbitral ruling, we will talk about it. That's why I'm going to China. I'm not going to tell you the agenda," Duterte said in a speech during the mass oath taking of the newly-elected officers of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc. in Malacanang.

He recalled what he promised before that there would come a time before he steps down from office he would raise the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration award to the Philippines against China's nine-dash line in the South China Sea.

"Did I tell you before, that before my term ends, we will be talking about China Sea?...I'm going there because there are now some sparkles...which need to be addressed immediately," Duterte said.

He also said he would go China later this month to watch the World Cup FIBA match with the Chinese vice president and to lead the inauguration of a school building in a university in Fujian named after his mother, Soledad Roa-Duterte.

He said when such a university was being organized in 1951, his mother was one of the few pioneering teachers.

"So, I'm going there (in China) to inaugurate that, but before that, I will be accompanied by the Vice President of China. There in the basketball. That's true. It's a break in protocol," he said. Celerina Monte/DMS