Hontiveros dares Cayetano to bare records on diplomatic actions vs. China for Senate scrutiny

Senator Risa Hontiveros dared Friday Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano to open to the Senate all records of the diplomatic actions he took against China and allow the chamber to interview personnel who may have knowledge about it.

This was after Cayetano challenged her to prove that the "50 to 100" diplomatic actions he said had been filed against China are fake. He said he will resign if she could prove him wrong.

Hontiveros said he was asking not for Cayetano’s resignation but the truth on the diplomatic protests.

“Since Secretary Cayetano likes to issue challenges, I challenge him to prove his claims true by opening to the Senate all DFA records since he took office and laying out all the details of each and every diplomatic action he took against China,” she said.

“Let the Senate interview, under oath, all foreign service personnel who may have knowledge of the diplomatic actions taken or not taken. Secretary Cayetano, this is not about resigning. It’s simply about telling the truth,” she added.

The senator said the burden of proving the authenticity of the so-called "50 to100" diplomatic actions lies with Cayetano, not with her, as it was the DFA secretary who bragged before a congressional hearing that his office undertook between 50 and 100 diplomatic actions against China in the last two years.

“That would be one diplomatic action every week or every other week. If these were even true, Secretary Cayetano would go down in history as the country's most anti-China foreign affairs secretary,” she said.

She noted that the DFA had earlier mentioned that the Philippines engaged in "85 diplomatic actions" under the Duterte administration, and 35 of these diplomatic actions were undertaken under the Secretary's leadership.

She said when pressed to provide details regarding the diplomatic actions against China, Cayetano backtracked, adding that they “haven’t counted” the number of protests they have filed against Beijing.

“Secretary Cayetano even asserted that in a purpose-driven foreign policy, how many doesn't really matter. So, ano ba talaga, Secretary, 50-100 ba, 85, 35, hindi pa ninyo nabibilang o wala talagang bibilangin?” said Hontiveros.

The senator quoted Cayetano as saying that he is only willing to divulge all the details of the 50-100 diplomatic actions in an executive session because he does not want to publicly disclose the government's foreign affairs strategy.

“For the record, I'm not asking the Secretary to disclose state secrets. I’m not asking for the locations and movements of our security forces or our defensive positions in the West Philippine Sea,” said Hontiveros.

“I'm simply asking him to tell us the exact number of his diplomatic actions against China, the dates and times they were made, the nature of his so-called protests, the issues that compelled him to take action and the number of times China responded. Are these really so hard to answer? How could these basic information compromise our national security? Secretary Cayetano is probably reading too many spy novels,” she added. — MDM, GMA News