Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesperson Rear Adm. Jay Tarriela on Monday again took Sen. Robin Padilla to task, saying the senator still failed to grasp one point: China — not “white people” and not the government’s transparency campaign — created and spread the AI-generated racist video portraying Filipinos as monkeys.

In a Facebook post, Tarriela said he had already explained the issue in Filipino but was apparently still misunderstood.

“Senator Padilla, it seems that even after I explained it in Filipino, you still did not get it,” he said in the vernacular. “So let me repeat it: China made the racist video. ... The one we should condemn is China.”

Tarriela rejected Padilla’s claim that a monkey caricature he used during a university lecture inspired the propaganda video, saying the illustration was satire presented in an academic setting and was never intended for public release.

“Everyone had already moved on from the caricature issue back in January, but you continue to use it as a convenient excuse for China,” he said.

He also denied attacking Padilla personally, saying the senator was the one who first mentioned him publicly before ending his post with a jab: “Thank you. I hope your next movie will still be a blockbuster.”

The exchange followed China’s publication of an AI-generated video depicting Filipinos as monkeys, prompting the Philippine government to condemn the material as racist and file a diplomatic protest.

The dispute escalated after Padilla criticized the government’s transparency campaign in the West Philippine Sea as “wartime propaganda,” while Tarriela defended it as a factual effort to document Chinese harassment of Philippine vessels.

Padilla later said Filipinos should not define themselves through racial caricatures and maintained that while he condemned China’s video, government officials should also avoid inflammatory imagery.

The Philippines and China have overlapping territorial claims in the West Philippine Sea.