If President Duterte has foreign affairs and defense department secretaries who demonstrate astonishing nescience over a very important matter as the Philippines vs China arbitration, he should be very worried. If the two officials echo almost verbatim the belligerent statements against China exploiting the arbitration award of Kelly Kraft, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, last June 1, and the more recent one of Secretary of State Michael Pompeo — which are really just part of President Trump’s recent attempts at distracting his nation from his catastrophic failure to deal with the coronavirus pandemic — he should be very concerned. It is humiliating for us Filipinos that our foreign affairs and defense secretaries are issuing statements against China in chorus with the US Secretary of State, issued on the same day, continuing the same propaganda line. I thought we had become independent of the US, with Duterte even emphasizing this with his rapprochement with China.

Tiglao, R. D. (2020, July 17). Locsin and Lorenzana so terribly misinformed about PH vs China arbitration. The Manila Times, pp. A1, A5.