Gloria Arroyo lawyer: Aquino provoked China’s ‘island-building factory’Published April 21, 2017 12:56pm
Updated April 21, 2017 2:14pm
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/607853/gloria-arroyo-lawyer-aquino-provoked-china-s-island-building-factory/story/The lawyer of former President and incumbent Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo blamed her successor, Benigno Aquino III, for provoking China into building artificial islands over disputed territories.
In a press conference for his primer on the West Philippine Sea dispute, Estrelito Mendoza said China’s “island-building factory” was pushed by the case that the Aquino administration filed before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
“As it turns out, that turned out to be a very significant event to China. Because China now has stated categorically and explicitly that its island-building factory … was provoked by the arbitral claim in the Philippines,” Mendoza told reporters, who were invited by Arroyo.
“So in effect, we were fighting in The Hague—we seemed to be winning in The Hague—but China outflanked us and China made it a point that while we were winning in The Hague, China was winning in the waters of the South China Sea,” he said.
Mendoza noted that this is “now going to be the most difficult problem” inherited by President Rodrigo Duterte.
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