President Duterte is in China again to pursue various initiatives that should redound to bilateral cooperation in various areas, thus potentially deepening the friendship and warm ties between the Philippines and China that had characterized the first half of the administration. Today in Beijing, Duterte is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the Filipinos back home will be waiting with bated breath how the President will make good his promise to discuss with Xi the unmentionable - the controversial Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling on the two nation's conflicting claims on islets and shoals in the South China Sea.

The same answer?. (2019, August 29). Malaya Business Insight, p. B4.