Apply proper construction, says Harry Roque in explaining Duterte’s waste basket remark

President Rodrigo Duterte’s remark that he'd throw in the waste basket the arbitral ruling which upheld the Philippines' exclusive economic zone was not his position but China's, his spokesman said on Thursday.

Told that Duterte on Wednesday night never mentioned the Chinese when he said he'd throw the decision in the trash bin, Roque asked the media "to apply the proper construction."

“The context of what the President said is ‘that is as far as China is concerned'," Roque said at a press briefing.

“That’s the reaction of China which has ignored the ruling,” he added, saying China did not participate in the arbitration proceedings.

"It appears that we have a genuine difference in appreciation of what he said, and that’s why you need to apply some kind of construction to what the President said,” Roque said.

Duterte on Wednesday night said the Philippines' victory in 2016 at the Permanent Court of Arbitration was just a piece of paper fit to be thrown in the “waste basket.”

He made the remark as he appeared to to dismiss the ruling secured from the Permanent Court of Arbitration by a team of Philippine officials in 2016 led by then Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario and then Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.

Duterte had been blaming Del Rosario for losing Scarborough Shoal in 2012, saying the Philippines lost control of the feature after the Filipino forces left while the Chinese stayed put.

Del Rosario has said that the agreement brokered by the United States during the standoff was for both sides to leave. He blamed Chinese deceit for their wresting control of the area after the last Filipino vessel left.

Duterte has said that whoever had control of the West Philippine Sea owned it.

Roque said Duterte declared before the United Nations General Assembly in September that the ruling was "beyond compromise and beyond the reach of passing governments to dilute, diminish or abandon.”

“And again, I reiterate, the proper construction should be pursuant to what he said to the UN General Assembly which is the most authoritative declaration of the Duterte administration's policy on the West Philippine Sea,” Roque said.

“He was belaboring the point because Justice Carpio has repeatedly said that the President is not finding ways to enforce the ruling.”

Roque reiterated that the ruling could not be enforced.

“There’s only so much that you can do because international law is different due to lack of enforcement mechanism,” Roque said. —NB, GMA News