Team DailyPedia
Another presidentiable, Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, thinks that pursuing talks with China is the only way to go, as he believes that we cannot afford to go to war with the Chinese.
In an interview during a January national convention of Philippine Jaycees, Duterte said that if elected, he will tell China to “Be courteous about this and we will just talk. We cannot go into war. We cannot afford it… but if we talk, I’d say that the predicate of this talks is that what you are occupying now belongs to the Republic of the Philippines.”
But a month later, at an election forum held in Manila, Duterte even added that he was open to sharing resources with China. “We cannot defeat you. We will be pulverized if we go to war. So I will just tell them, ‘If you want to talk, let’s talk. Or you might just want to open this as a mutual corridor and I will be willing to talk to you if there is oil and gas. Let us do it joint exploration,'” the mayor said.
