Palace: Duterte invoking PHL-US treaty in China sea dispute just ‘sarcasm’

Malacañang on Thursday said President Rodrigo Duterte's remark about invoking the country's defense pact with the United States to counter China's activities in the South China was just sarcasm directed at his critics.

Duterte on Wednesday mocked critics of his handling of the maritime dispute with China by urging Washington to deploy the US Navy's 7th Fleet, based in Yokosuka, Japan, to the disputed waters.

The President said he will bring Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, and former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert Del Rosario — prominent critics of his South China Sea policy — with him.

"He kept on saying that by way of putting into absurdity the criticism by the critics and detractors and challenging them that in the event of any armed attack and the treaty will be operational, then these critics and detractors which the President has named should go with him in defending the West Philippine Sea," presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said at a news conference.

Panelo said Duterte, a lawyer, knew that the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty cannot be invoked "without any armed assault or attack against any of the parties in that treaty."

"It [remains to be a sarcasm] and a challenge to them [critics]," the Palace official said.

Duterte has been criticized for setting aside the United Nations-backed tribunal's ruling invalidating China's massive claims in the South China Sea in pursuit of warmer relations with China.

He has repeatedly said the Philippines cannot win a war, arguing it will only result in a massacre of troops. —NB, GMA News