Gibo’s strategic candor
By all accounts, Teodoro’s candor drew positive domestic attention and support that provoked Senator Ping Lacson to tease a future ‘President Teodoro.’
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By all accounts, Teodoro’s candor drew positive domestic attention and support that provoked Senator Ping Lacson to tease a future ‘President Teodoro.’
What went down was simple enough and is often the stuff of real life: reading aloud a private note just handed to you can be deeply embarrassing.
But when done in a high-stakes political setting involving head-butting countries, reading aloud a stealthy political note not only embarrasses the sender for bad behavior but can also be turned into a powerful political and strategic tool by the receiver of the note.
Which was exactly what happened on 8 September at an international security forum in Seoul, South Korea when gutsy and quick-witted Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro publicly read aloud from the stage a handwritten note just handed to him by a Chinese military attaché defending China’s sweeping South China Sea claims.
Not only did Teodoro read the note aloud, he rebutted point by point several highly charged issues it raised, at one point stingingly rebuking China which neither accepted nor recognized the 2016 South China Sea arbitration ruling: “Of course, because you lost.”
Teodoro delivered a curt rebuttal to the assertion that China’s position on the arbitration case was clear, firm and consistent. Saying that China’s position was not legally defensible and taking issue with the note’s claim that the South China Sea arbitration ruling violated international law, Teodoro responded, “So, what you’re saying is UNCLOS violates international law?”
On another claim that the arbitral ruling had no binding force, Teodoro retorted: “Because you don’t want to be subjected to UNCLOS.”
Explaining the significance of Teodoro’s denunciation, former Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio told a Singaporean newspaper: “The Chinese have always said that they don’t recognize the (UNCLOS) award because it’s illegal. But everyone knows that the moment you sign and ratify UNCLOS, you give your consent in advance.”
By all accounts, Teodoro’s candor drew positive domestic attention and support that provoked Senator Ping Lacson to tease a future “President Teodoro.”
Teodoro’s clapback drew an immediate response from the delegates to the Seoul Defense Dialogue forum. Singapore’s Strait Times reported that a Singaporean geopolitical analyst “recalled that a delegate seated in front of him began clapping after Teodoro finished his rebuttal, before much of the audience joined in.”
“That was quite rousing,” the analyst said, adding that the episode was an “an embarrassment for China” as it saw its longstanding arguments rebutted point by point before an international audience.
Elsewhere, a social media commentator quoted an American policy analyst as saying, “Remarkable. Never heard a Southeast Asian official lay into China like this.”
And also on social media several South Korean commenters called Teodoro a “badass” for his firm responses to China’s arguments.
Teodoro, for his part, didn’t immediately explain why he found the note not only “disrespectful” but “actual coercion, bullying and aggression.”
Later, he did: “I decided to call them out, finally. The world has been coddling them and indulging them too much and they abuse the courtesy shown (to them), might as well call them out.”
As one perceptive commentator put it: “Coercion works best when it is not read aloud… for a time, the advice given to small countries has been the opposite. Keep it quiet.”
Until Teodoro decided otherwise.
