Europe won’t coalesce to recognize SCS ruling — Locsin

MANILA, Philippines — European countries are unlikely to form a coalition to recognize the arbitral ruling invalidating China’s nine-dash line claim in the South China Sea as they are “desperate” for Chinese money.

“Dangerous to form a coalition of states coalescing precisely to recognize the ruling because we will not find a single country joining it except Vietnam. US does not recognize UNCLOS. All Europe will not because it is desperate for Chinese money. Poverty does that to principle,” Locsin said on Twitter. UNCLOS is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

He said the “United States is the Philippines’ only military ally on the planet to the exclusion of all other powers including European ones.”

“No, we just need to make it fatally costly for any to attack us. Why we live or die, stand or fall on the Mutual Defense Treaty that can unleash a firestorm in Asia. The US can deliver its punches from unbridgeable distance. Why she is the sole guardian of world freedom,” he said.

On Wednesday, the secretary said US allies in Europe are “dead set” on insulting the Philippines in the United Nations, raising doubts over Western commitment to help defend the country’s sovereignty.

He questioned Western commitment if it continues to insult the country’s human rights record and policies.

Turning to UN-member countries that voted in favor of the Iceland-initiated resolution to investigate “drug war” killings in the Philippines on Thursday, Locsin said they were for pushing for the resolution “in the confidence that the world has forgotten what they did and what should have been done to them had there been a Human Rights Council.”