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Enrile: Revelation of Brady notes won't affect PHL position vs China
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile maintained Friday that his decision to reveal the supposed confidential information in the notes of former Philippine Ambassador to China Sonia Brady regarding Senator Antonio Trillanes VI's backchanneling with China won't affect the country's position in the West Philippine Sea dispute.
"No. Hindi totoo yun, yung nagsabi nun they have no experience about it. Sino ba yung mag expert na yun?" Enrile said in an interview aired over GMA News TV's News To Go.
Last Wednesday, Trillanes bolted the Senate majority bloc and bashed Enrile over the controversial Camarines Sur bill. Enrile then retaliated by exposing Trillanes' alleged unauthorized and questionable involvement in the China-Philippines row over the West Philippine Sea by reading the notes of Brady.
Among the controversial contents of Brady's notes weret:
- Trillanes told Brady that: "Secretary Del Rosario is committing treason."
- Trillanes told Brady that: "Sa Pilipinas walang may gusto sa atin yong Panatag, yong Scarborough Shoal."
Lawyer Jay Batongbacal, an international law expert from the University of the Philippines College of Law, said it was fine to have internal disagreements but that such discussions should be kept behind closed doors.
"Kung ganyang lumabas pati yung you're washing your dirty linen in public, open na open lahat ng discussion mo eh ultimately ikaw lang din ang napeplace at a disadvantage," Batongbacal said in a report aired over GMA News' Unang Balita.
In a separate television interview, ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tino echoed the sentiment.
"Nalantad yung mga apparently my internal differences sa ating negotiating strategy and so on," Tinio said. No harm
But Prof. Benito Lim, faculty at the Ateneo de Manila University Chinese Studies department, agreed with Enrile and said that this won't do any harm since China probably knows about this already.
"It cannot do more damage but why do they have to bring those out? They [the Chinese] were listening... they want to know what type of leadership we have tapos they said ay nakakahiya pala itong mga tao na ito," he said.
But in another interview, Trillanes said it was still prohibited to reveal such "state secrets."
"Ang unfair dito, binasa niya ngayon malay natin kung ang binasa niya eh script na ginawa ng secretary niya alam ba ninyo yun? Di ninyo alam. Ngayong binasa mo na sige nga I challenge him ibigay niya yang document na yan sa media at ipakita niya," he said.
But Enrile said that there was no "state secret" in Trillanes' conversation with Brady.
"Anong state secret yun, it was not even clarssified. He does not know what he's talking about. This guy is teaching me about national security. My God, I've been 17 years in charge of national security and foreign relations of this country," he said.
Trillanes had challenged Enrile to file a case against him if he really did anything wrong. "Magaling siyang abogado, i-file niya," he said.
Enrile, however, said that he won't waste his time on the junior lawmaker. "Sino siya di ko siya papatulan at di ko siya pag-aaksayahan. Sino si Trillanes sa akin? My god this man thinks he is that big," he said.
The Palace, meanwhile, said they will wait for whatever Enrile intends to do.
President Benigno Aquino III has likewise asked Trillanes and Foreign Affairs Sec. Albert del Rosario to stop talking about the issue.
For his part, Lim said the DFA should come up with "more realistic solutions" to address the Panatag (Scarborough) controversy and look for people who are "less talkative, less quarrelsome to carry out their mission order." Binay defends Del Rosario
Meanwhile, Vice President Jejomar Binay defended Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario from accusations of treason regarding the Philippines' territorial row with China.
Binay branded as "unfortunate" such accusations, noting the Philippines' official foreign policy should be coming from Del Rosario.
"He (Del Rosario) is correctly guiding our foreign policy. And he speaks for the President in matters of foreign policy. It saddens me that this has happened," he said at an interview during the oath-taking ceremony of United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) candidates in Tagbilaran, Bohol Thursday. Binay and Enrile are also political allies, both belonging to the UNA coalition.
Excerpts of the interview were posted on Binay's Facebook page Friday afternoon. — with Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ, GMA News
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