(Eagle News) — Senator Leila de Lima on Thursday, June 20, expressed support for the creation of a “truth movement” that she said would help rectify China’s fake historical claim on the disputed islands in the South China Sea.
In backing Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio’s proposal, De Lima said the “best way to disprove the lies peddled by the Chinese government,” after all, is “to counter it by spreading the truth.”
She said the movement would reach out to the Chinese who occasionally travel outside their country.
Carpio had said the Chinese government has been teaching its citizens that China owned the South China Sea for over 2,000 years, despite a resolution by the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal in 2016 in The Hague nullifying its claim.
Among the facts the movement will disseminate, De Lima said, is that China does not own the entire South China Sea and that it has actually “violated international law by building military bases on artificial islands within our Exclusive Economic Zone.”
“Dapat tayong sama-samang tumindig laban sa mga sumusubok sumakop sa atin, lalo pa’t nasa panig naman tayo ng tama,” De Lima said.
