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Duterte blasts Carpio over South China Sea stance


President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday slammed Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who has lost his final chance to become chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Duterte apparently took aim at Carpio's pronouncements urging the government to be more assertive in defending the Philippines' sovereign rights in the disputed South China Sea by filing diplomatic protests over Beijing's alleged militarization of its artificial islands there.

Carpio even suggested in March last year that the Philippine Navy be sent to patrol the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, a rocky outcrop teeming with maritime resources that is within Manila's 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

It is the same area where earlier this month the Chinese Coast Guard stopped a GMA news team from filming, saying that they were in the "sea area of the People’s Republic of China.”

"Lagi ka nag-hanker na atakehin, you do something," the President said of Carpio in a speech in Tubod, Lanao del Norte.

"What do you want me to do? Ang arbitration, so I'll order my military and the police to go there in Palawan and shoot it out? It will be a massacre."

This position that the president has frequently stated—that to take a stand against China's actions in the disputed sea means to go to war with it—has been disputed by Carpio, who called it a "false choice."

The Aquino administration took China to an international arbitration court and won a favorable ruling that invalidated in July 2016 China's expansive claims in the resource-rich waterway.

Duterte, however, temporarily set aside the ruling to avoid confrontation with China, but vowed to raise it at the right time during his term.

Carpio was among the five candidates for the chief justice post, which eventually went to his SC colleague, Lucas Bersamin.

Duterte did not explain in his speech why he chose Bersamin, the most senior magistrate in terms of length of service in the judiciary, over Carpio, who had been the Acting Chief Justice since Teresita De Castro's retirement last month.

“Si Carpio, Peralta, Bersamin. Limang pangalan ang ibinigay sa akin. So I chose Bersamin,” Duterte said in a mix of Cebuano and English.

“Di ba nagsabi na si Carpio dati na hindi niya tatanggapin [ang posisyon]?” the President said.

“Susunod niyan ang next in rank. Next in rank kung magaling ka.”

Carpio, who refused to pursue a candidacy to the vacancy created by the ouster of  former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, earlier said he no longer had any reason to turn down the nomination following De Castro’s retirement.

Both Bersamin and Carpio will reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 for justices and judges in October next year.

The President, meanwhile, said he decided to elevate Court of Appeals Justice Rosmari Carandang to the SC because of seniority. Prior to her appointment, Carandang had been with the appellate court for 15 years. — BM/BAP, GMA News

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