Smugness, or a misplaced sense of self-satisfaction despite the swelling discontent expressed by various sectors, has generally characterized President Duterte’s administration as it deals, or fails to deal, with two of our country’s outstanding problems today. One is the worsening state of the COVID-19 pandemic after over a year of economically debilitating lockdowns. The other is China’s continuing incursions into the West Philippine Sea, trampling on our maritime rights enshrined in the 1994 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and upheld by an international arbitral tribunal in 2016. Since early March, over 200 maritime militia vessels have been “swarming” the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Julian Felipe Reef.

Ocampo, S. C. (2021, April 17). Presidential will needed against China incursions. The Philippine Star, p. 5.