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Duterte to ask for China presence if ASEAN countries can’t secure Celebes, Sulu seas


If the Southeast Asian nations cannot address the piracy and terrorism threats in the region, President Rodrigo Duterte will pull out an ace up his sleeve: China.

Duterte is off to New Delhi, India for a special commemorative summit with the other leads of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

During his pre-departure speech at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the President said he intends to raise the security issues during the meeting. He said that ASEAN is “all trade and commerce and everything else under the sun, except but we do not have the platform for terrorism and other problems of law and order.”

Duterte added that if the Southeast Asian nations cannot handle the threats, China can be of help.

“You have the vacant — diyan sa Celebes, Sulu Sea. Bakante tayo diyan eh. And the [Molucca Sea]. Na kung sabi kung — Kaya ako pupunta, sabihin ko, ‘Kung ganito lang naman, so what’s the use of meeting just once a year?’ And probably the ministerial level, once every three months. They cannot accomplish anything because ‘yung waters natin contiguous to the archipelago of the Philippines is getting to be dangerous. And yet it is only Indonesia who’s active there,” he said.

“Sasabihin ko sa inyo, kung hindi natin kaya, we’ll just have to call China to come in and blow them off just like Somalia, that Aden Strait there. Were it not for the presence of the Chinese, hindi mahinto ‘yung piracy doon. It’s doubling up everything — fuel. You have to go around. Then the freight charges, of course, it goes with it. And the insurance,” he added.

Just like his war on drugs, Duterte also proposed a tough stance against these criminals.

“We have to come up with a platform of how to deal with terrorism. Ako, I go for a hardline policy. Blow them up in the high seas. Sirain mo. Kanyunin mo. Otherwise, if we do not do the extreme measures, we’d always be at the mercy of criminal,” he said.

“Ngayon, ‘pag ayaw nila, eh ‘di tayo. And my orders to the Armed Forces would really be to destroy. Now, well, destroy means you have to destroy physically. And if you have to kill, you kill. That’s the only way to destroy an enemy. It cannot be empty words,” he added.

After India, Duterte raised the possibility of traveling to Australia for another regional meeting on security.

“There’s an upcoming meeting in Australia. It’s all about security again. Pag-usapan na natin dito. Let us talk what would be the platform that we will represent…. We’ve been sharing information with everybody, as a matter of fact, all these years. And yet the thing in Marawi came into being,” he said, referring to the five-month siege of Marawi City led by ISIS-inspired Maute group. —NB, GMA News

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