With Beijing already in possession of vast areas in the South China Sea, the United States and other countries should just accept this “reality” and avoid creating “friction” that could lead to full-scale military confrontation, President Duterte said yesterday. “And in all of these things, China is there. That’s a reality and America and everybody should realize that they are there,” Duterte told reporters yesterday on the sidelines of the 33rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit here. “So if you just keep on creating friction, little friction, one day a bad miscalculation could turn things… Murphy’s Law – if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong,” he said.

Dumlao, A., & Mendez, C. (2018, November 16). 'SCS military action to create further friction’. The Philippine Star, pp. 1, 10.