Former Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario disclosed Monday that China interfered in the 2016 national elections to help then presidential bet Rodrigo Duterte get elected. "On February 22, 2019, we received information from a most reliable international entity that high officials from China are bragging that they had been able to influence the 2016 Philippine elections so that Duterte would be president," Del Rosario said in his speech during the online forum on the commemoration of the Philippines' legal victory in the arbitral tribunal against China over the maritime dispute in the South China Sea. "We believe that our Beijing post can easily validate this. Moreover, subsequent actions of the President lend more credence to this information," Del Rosario added.

Requejo, R. E., & Barcelo, V. (2021, July 13). Ex-DFA chief: China helped Rody. Manila Standard, pp. A1, A2.