President Rodrigo Duterte has asked China to stay away from the Philippine claimed the Spratly Islands, Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano told his pre-departure news conference Friday night. Before he took the four-hour flight from Manila to Seoul, where he joined President Duterte on the latter’s first official visit to the Asian country, Cayetano added that aside from Duterte’s request to China regarding lending the Philippines billions of pesos worth of loans, that if Beijing stopped entering the disputed Spratly Islands, both countries could be friends.

Fabunan, S. S. D. (2018, June 03). China told: keep out of Spratlys. Manila Standard, pp. A1, A2.