Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Friday announced that the Philippine government through the Department of Transportation will no longer engage Chinese state-owned companies for major infrastructure projects in the country.
According to Zubiri, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista himself made a commitment to him amid the escalating tension between the Philippines and China in the West Philippine Sea.
“I talked to Secretary Jimmy Bautista, he was at the Senate recently. We talked one on one. I told him: ‘Secretary, you are seeing what they are doing to your Coast Guard, right?’” said Zubiri.
“I told him not to give Chinese state-owned companies projects here in the Philippines such as trains. We have the North to South Railways…. Let us not give it to them. Let us give it to South Morea or Japan instead,” he added.
“I was glad because Secretary Bautista said they would no longer Chinese state-owned companies for their trains, airports, and big-ticket items,” the lawmaker also said.
To recall, Zubiri earlier proposed to boycott Chinese products and companies in the Philippines due to a recent incident that involved the use of water cannons by China against the Philippine Navy and Philippine Coast Guard vessels during its re-supply run in Ayungin Shoal to a grounded BRP Sierra Madre.
He also suggested the exclusion of Chinese contractors in infrastructure projects funded by the Filipino people’s money as he stressed that Filipino taxpayers are unwittingly funding China’s illegal incursions and harassment of Filipinos in the West Philippine Sea with the Philippine government’s continued patronage of Chinese contractors in big-ticket public infrastructure projects all over the country.
Zubiri also made the same call to the Department of Public Works and Highways not to award big-ticket projects to Chinese contractors such as the 32-kilometer
Bataan-Cavite Interlink Bridge and instead grant it to “friendlier” countries such as Japan and South Korea which have been providing development aid to the Philippines.
“Let us give it instead to the neighboring countries that love us, to our friends that are helping us,” said Zubiri.