HOUSE committee on transportation chairman and Samar Rep. Edgar Mary Sarmiento has expressed support for Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin’s pronouncement that he would strongly recommend the termination of all contracts involving Chinese companies that were involved in the reclamation of disputed territories in the West Philippine Sea.
According to Sarmiento, Locsin’s position would put absolute clarity on the government’s foreign policy towards China that while we embrace them as allies, we also have our patriotic duty to assert our sovereign rights.
This would show that the Philippines is one with the world in opposing these Chinese reclamations at the West Philippine Sea.
“I fully support Secretary Locsin if he would recommend the termination of all local contracts involving companies that enabled the Chinese government to reclaim and build structures in our
territories. Allowing these Chinese companies to operate here is way too much of an insult for all Filipinos,” Sarmiento said.
Sarmiento said that government agencies, especially those in the forefront of the government’s Build, Build, Build program, should conduct an audit of all government projects that involve contractors which may have connections with the companies that took part in the reclamation projects.
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) should also identify personalities who are working for these companies and should be deported right away.
In an interview Locsin said he would strongly recommend terminating local contracts with any Chinese companies involved in the reclamations in the West Philippine Sea.
His statement came days after the US government-imposed sanctions against China state-owned enterprises and visa restrictions on individuals behind the reclamations.
Among those covered by the US sanctions are subsidiaries of the state-owned China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), which is part of a consortium that bagged the Sangley Point International Airport (SPIA) project in Cavite.
