PCG’s Tarriela amused by CIA spy tag

A bemused Commodore Jay Tarriela laughed off a tweet that claimed he had been playing the cloak-and-dagger espionage game for the United States' Central Intelligence Agency.

"I was flattered when tagged as a CIA agent. It seems to me that I am a Hollywood star. It's hilarious, and what's the basis?" Tarriela said in a radio interview on Tuesday.

"Can they show me documents to prove that claim?" he asked, adding he has little time to entertain trolls and the fake news they peddle.

He said the amount of lies being written about him doesn't bother him since his job is to help protect the sovereignty of the country, referring to the PCG's activities in the West Philippine Sea against China's encroachment.

Tarriela has been hitting China hard over its aggression against PCG, Navy, and private ships in the WPS, which overlaps the South China Sea, being claimed nearly wholly by Beijing.

He was referring to numerous attempts by Chinese vessels to stop the PCG and Philippine Navy from resupplying the grounded BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal.

The Permanent Arbitration Court shot down China's South China Sea claim in a 2016 ruling that affirmed Philippine sovereignty within 200 nautical miles of the WPS.

Other sources in the PCG rode the spy yarn by saying that Tarriela may be an "Amboy" or an American boy as an exchange student who graduated as a scholar in the US. 

An article on Maritime Fairtrade said Tarriela completed his Ph.D. at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies under the GRIPS Global Governance (G-cube) Program in Tokyo as a Japan International Cooperation Agency ASEAN Public Policy Leadership scholar.

It said that Tarriela attended numerous military and Coast Guard trainings locally and abroad.

"He holds a graduate degree from the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy Graduate School and a Master of Policy Studies degree from GRIPS and the Japan Coast Guard Academy, where he was part of the first batch of the Maritime Safety and Security Program launched jointly by both institutions in 2016," his profile article read.