PHILIPPINE president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Junior said today he would uphold an international ruling against Beijing over the disputed South China Sea, insisting he would not let China trample on Manila’s maritime rights.

“We have a very important ruling in our favour and we will use it to continue to assert our territorial rights. It is not a claim. It is already our territorial right,” Marcos said in an interview with selected local media.

Beijing has ignored a 2016 decision by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration that declared its historical claim over most of the South China Sea to be without basis.

Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte set aside the ruling in exchange for promises of trade and investment, which critics said have not materialised.

In his strongest comments yet on the sensitive issue, Marcos said he would not “allow a single millimetre of our maritime coastal rights to be trampled upon”.

“We’re talking about China. We talk to China consistently with a firm voice,” he said.

But he added: “We cannot go to war with them. That’s the last thing we need right now.”

‘Friends with everyone’

Marcos, popularly known as Bongbong, secured more than half of the votes in the May 9 election to win the presidency by a wide margin and cap a remarkable comeback for his family.

He formally takes office on June 30. 

Marcos and his running mate, Sara Duterte, who also won the vice-presidential race in a landslide, have embraced key policies of the elder Duterte.

But Marcos signalled on foreign policy he would not adopt the “slightly unorthodox approach” of Duterte, who rattled diplomats with his firebrand rhetoric and mercurial nature.

Marcos indicated he would seek to strike a balance between China and the United States, which are vying to have the closest ties with his administration.

“We are a small player among very large giants in geopolitics. We have to ply our own way,” said Marcos.

“I do not subscribe to the old thinking of the Cold War where we had this spheres of influence where you’re under the Soviet Union or you’re under the United States.

“I think that we have to be find an independent foreign policy where we are friends with everyone. It’s the only way.” – AFP, May 26, 2022.