Roque: Man-made islands will be ours 'if we can ask China to leave'

MANILA, Philippines — There will come a time that the Philippines will be grateful to China for building artificial islands in the West Philippine Sea, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.

In an interview with Franco Mabanta, a pro-Duterte social media user, on Wednesday night, Roque said that the Philippines is the only country that can legally build artificial islands in the contested waters.

"There will come a time when China’s might has ceased, when we will have to thank them for the islands because it is the only the Philippines that can legally build those artificial islands," Roque said in the interview.

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"Ergo, they have no right to build those artificial islands in the first place. Clearly, eventually, the artificial islands will be ours if we can get... ask China to leave the islands," he added.

The Cabinet official also said that it would be better for the Philippines to maintain friendly relations with Beijing as the country cannot wage a war against China.

"While we can’t stand up to them, let’s not give them an opportunity to use the weapons in these artificial islands against us," Roque said.

The Philippines filed an arbitral case at a UN tribunal that said in 2016 that China does not have legal basis for its sweeping nine-dash-line claim in the South China Sea, part of which is in the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone and is called the West Philippine Sea.

There was no war between the Philippines and China while the case was being heard and experts have stressed that there are alternatives to going to war to assert sovereignty.

Roque criticizes past admin's 'antagonistic' vs China

Roque also lauded President Rodrigo Duterte's policy in the West Philippine Sea and criticized the Aquino administration's "antagonistic" approach against China's activities in the area.

Under the Aquino administration, the Philippines lodged an arbitration case against China's nine-dash line claim in the South China Sea before the United Nations-backed tribunal based in The Hague, Netherlands.

"All I know is when we took an antagonistic stand against China, my clients, fishermen from Zambales, Pangasinan were not able to fish in Scarborough (Shoal) and now they’re able to fish. So that’s what matters - the right to livelihood without surrendering even an inch of Philippine territory," he said.

Roque reiterated that Beijing had already installed military facilities in their artificial islands in the West Philippine Sea when Duterte took office in June 2016.

What Duterte has done to address the issue was to maintain friendly relations with China and assure that they would not conduct new reclamation activities.

"The president just said, 'Well, I can’t undo what is there.' Obviously, because we don’t have the means to compel China to remove it, neither do we have the means to remove it ourselves," Roque said.

Earlier this week, a newspaper report showed that China's militarization of its artificial islands in the West Philippine Sea was nearly complete.

Roque had dismissed the report, saying that the information was not anymore "news" as the islands were already reclaimed during the time of the former administration.

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