Avoiding a bloody “shooting war” is neither surrender nor accepting defeat, especially over our country’s sovereignty claims in the disputed South China Sea (SCS), but which we call as our West Philippine Sea (WPS). A retired four-star general and who once served as Armed Forces chief of staff, Secretary Hermogenes Esperon Jr. of the National Security Council (NSC) asserted this. Esperon reiterated President Rodrigo Duterte strictly adheres to an “independent foreign policy” as the country’s chief foreign policy architect amid insistence for the Philippines to bring into the picture the United States as treaty ally in the Mutual Defense Treaty to resolve by force our maritime territorial dispute with China.

Villanueva, M. A. (2021, April 23). Phl NovaSAR to watch over WPS. The Philippine Star, p. 9.