So sorry.
Realizing that his statement had ruffled the feelings of former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario and acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio over his remarks on the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana apologized to the two officials.
He also descrbied them as “true patriots.”
The Defense chief earlier said that the country’s historic victory over China in the PCA is an “empty victory.”
“I sincerely apologize to these two great gentlemen for ruffling their feelings when I said that the PCA ruling in our favor is an empty victory,” he said in a statement.
“Both have reasons to be miffed for they worked hard to win our case before the PCA,” he added. “It was not my intention to denigrate their achievement.”
Carpio and Del Rosario were part of the group that pushed for the filing of the maritime case against China in connection with its massive claim over the South China Sea.
Lorenzana said that he was not referring to the efforts of Del Rosario and Carpio when he used the phrase empty victory but rather to the outcome of the ruling.
“With the realities on the ground, the victory being claimed is premature and incomplete since the ruling has no enforcement mechanism,” he said.
“How can victory be claimed over an arbitration case that proceeded even if the other party declined to participate, having stated from the beginning that it will not abide by the arbitration’s outcome,?” he added.
The defense chief made the “empty victory” remark following the results of the Second Quarter 2018 Social Weather survey which showed that 87 percent of adult Filipinos say it is important that the Philippines regains control of the islands occupied by China in the West Philippine Sea.
He also questioned the result of the survey, saying “there must be something wrong with the way the survey questions were crafted.”
“Many people also need to understand that the PCA ruling was about ‘sovereign rights’ and not ‘sovereignty,’ which are two different things,” he said.
In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague invalidated China’s claim over most of the islands in the West Philippine Sea.
The arbitration tribunal’s ruling also spelled out the Philippines’ sovereign rights to access offshore oil and gas fields within its 200-nautical mile EEZ.
President Rodrigo Duterte, however, set aside the ruling to avoid confrontation with China and instead pursued other areas of cooperation with the Asian superpower.