Cayetano's stance on spat with China 'overly-interpreted'

MANILA - Malacañang on Thursday came to the defense of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, who seemed to have echoed the softlanding policy of President Rodrigo Duterte on Philippines' rift with China over the contested South China Sea.

Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said Cayetano's approach on how to deal with China’s extensive claim to the resource-rich waters was just “overly-interpreted.”

“I think that’s overly interpreting things. As being chair, our main task was to produce a joint communiqué that all Asean members would sign regardless of differences in position,” Abella

told a press conference.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (Asean) foreign ministers, in a joint statement released Sunday, emphasized “non-militarization” and “selfrestraint” in the South China Sea.

“We emphasized the importance of non-militarization and self-restraint in the conduct of all activities by claimants and all other states, including those mentioned in the [Declaration of Conduct] that could further complicate the situation and escalate tensions in the South China Sea,” the joint communiqué read.

Cayetano, chair of Asean’s top diplomats, admitted Tuesday that he wanted to exclude concerns on China’s land reclamation and militarization activities in the joint statement. SunStar Philippines