The country’s issues with China over the West Philippine Sea remain a problem that haunts Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana every day. He said there is currently a stalemate on the matter of who occupies which island in the region, though President Duterte’s strategy of not provoking the Chinese appears to be the right decision. “China is on my mind every day because of what they are doing in the West Philippine Sea. I wish I could make it go away but they are not, even if we are going to show them our arbitral ruling document, that they have no business there, they will not even honor it. So that’s it,” he told ANC in an interview earlier this week.

Punongbayan, M. (2018, December 27). WPS issue 'haunts' Lorenzana every day. The Philippine Star, p. 5.