Daily Tribune
Ted ALJIBE/Agence france-presse Bountiful catch The sun rises on Filipino fishermen aboard their boat near the Scarborough Shoal, which China took control of starting in 2012, prompting the Philippines to file a complaint a year later before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
Executive Secretary Justice Lucas Bersamin on Thursday said that the Philippines can live without China despite their strong economic ties, adding that the country should avoid being dependent on its Asian neighbor.
Nonetheless, Bersamin said in a recent TV interview that Philippine-China relations have many aspects, and that he is not in a position to talk about them because of his closeness with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
"We are dealing with issues diplomatically. It is still possible for us to go with China, but about the economic viability of our relations or the economic dimensions if we were to go against China. You know, we can't say that we are dependent on China," Bersamin said.
"China might be our trading partner or supplier, or it gives us some products that we may need, but we should not be too dependent on China. I don't think China will even want us to be dependent because China knows that we have a multilateral approach," Bersamin added.
Bersamin's statement comes as the Philippines is facing increasing pressure from China in the South China Sea. China has been militarizing islands and reefs in the disputed waters despite a 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration that invalidated its claims.
He maintained that the Philippines has exclusive rights to the fisheries and natural resources in the West Philippine Sea, which China is claiming as part of its nine-dash line territory (recently expanded to 10-dash line) in the South China Sea.
"That's probably why China is acting like that. But beyond that, we do not want to have a conflict with China. We do not want to provoke a conflict with China because we can coexist with China," Bersamin said.
He refused to contrast the Marcos administration with the previous Duterte government, which was seen to be close to China. "I don't want to compare," he said. "We leave that to the Presidents to make those decisions, the directions that they take."
Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that China has become the Philippines' primary trade partner. As of May, total exports to the Philippines reached $6.44 billion, with China having 16.6 percent of the trade volume.
