Part 8: A Nation with Many Strange Voices
This headline is an adaptation from the Turkish proverb “When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace turns into a circus,” highlighting a political scenario where unqualified, performative, or chaotic individuals occupy positions of power, resulting in the degradation of national institutions.
Frequently used in modern political discourse to critique leaders perceived as incompetent or overly dramatic, turning governing bodies into a “circus”.
When spokesmen become the story, the messenger becomes the message or when public officials treat governance as entertainment or spectacle, the seriousness of statecraft is lost, causing the nation to weaken, become unstable, or fall into disarray.
The issue
The bone of contention was simple, clear and outrightly damning.
On January 14, 2026, PCG Commodore Jay Tarriela posted AI-generated caricatured photos of China President Xi Jinping as his background in a forum at De La Salle St. Benilde, as he made his case before college students.
The on-screen photos depicted the Chinese president fuming in anger, flexing his muscles, and even holding a wooden boat with a Philippine flag. The overhead title read “Why China remains to be a bully”.
This was not accidental. This ad hominem was an intentional sabotage of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s gradual warming-up with China, began with the establishment of E-visas, and a 14-day Visa Free program for Chinese tourists, timed with the arrival of a new Ambassador from China.
The faux pas evoked a diplomatic protest from China with a rebuke from Guo Jiakun the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tarriela’s was recalcitrant at admitting guilt. Refusing to apologize, he issued a video disowning wrongdoing and lying he did not identify the subject as China’s president.
Social media rained with a replay of the whole event showing him identifying Xi Jinping seven times.
Camp Aguinaldo
Coming to the rescue of Tarriela, Assistant Secretary Arsenio R. Andolong, spokesman for the Philippine Department of National Defense, quoted Guo:
“Certain Philippine uniformed service members, driven by personal political motives, have repeatedly made outrageous and absurd statements and habitually incite confrontation. Such behavior is despicable. A word of advice to relevant individuals in the Philippines: immediately stop making provocations and stop confusing right and wrong, or they will pay the price for what they did.”
But Andolong’s response attempted to turn the tables by not addressing but instead diverting the issue:
“The statement mentioned proves the unflinching and twisted attempt by the PROC to spread distorted narratives and to continue with its ineffective and distasteful campaign to bully smaller Countries. The WPS and any of its features have never been part of the PROC and we shall continue to perform our duty to stop the PROC’s malign influence and illegal activities in our areas of jurisdiction.”
Speaking for Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, he incompetently brought the weight of the entire Department of National Defense to validate a possible crime, legitimizing the misbehavior of a uniformed Philippine official, and worse compounding a falsehood, by adding more fabricated or irrelevant details.
Not just misdemeanor but a crime
Under Article 118 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, ‘giving motives for reprisals’ is a crime against national security committed during peace time.
It involves any public officer or private individual who, through unlawful or unauthorized acts, exposes Filipino citizens to dangers or retaliation against their persons or property by a foreign power.
Around 500,000 overseas Filipino workers are immediately affected by any diplomatic pullout by China.
Andolong’s reference to the ‘West Philippine Sea’ is an exacerbation. The sole issue is Tarriela, who performed an action which is impossible to have any semblance of government authority – insulting a head of another state while donning a coast guard uniform in a public and wildly publicized event.
Philippine Senate
The circus unfolds. Senator Risa Hontiveros said the Chinese Embassy has been acting as a ‘bad guest’ here in the Philippines (and) should show greater respect for their host country.
She is of course entitled to her wrong opinion, but to say “What Philippine officials are doing is justified, and the Chinese Embassy’s attacks against them constitute a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” citing a treaty that she obviously has not read, exposes her intellectual dishonesty and ignorance of international law.
Erwin (aka Erich Sylvester) Tulfo, a suspected American citizen who served in the US Army for ten years and who is poised to take over the Foreign Relations Committee also criticized China, saying “If you do not like how democracy works in this country, then you are free to leave the Philippines. Get the fuck out!”
His rejoinder “You do not have the moral authority to lecture Filipinos about freedom of speech—because freedom of speech does not exist in your country. It is not practiced. It is not protected. It is punished,” however, is just plain discordant noise because nobody in the Chinese Embassy commented on how we conduct our democracy. It is also not true that the Chinese do not have freedom of speech, it is not just as licentious and irresponsible as our senators abuse it.
Tulfo can hold the Guinness World Records of the only human in history who has been born twice. First in August 10, 1963 as ‘Erwin Teshida Tulfo’ in Tacloban, Leyte and two years later on December 30, 1965 as ‘Erich Sylvester Tulfo’, in Hawaii.
Chinese Deputy Spokesperson Guo Wei responded “No one wants to silence you, but freedom of speech is not a license to recklessly defame or attack others, let alone the head of state of another country—this is completely unacceptable.”
Senate President Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto suggested declaring Guo Wei persona non grata.
Francisco ‘Kiko’ Pangilinan, proposing a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate condemning China’s revulsions over Tarriela’s statements said “When we—senators, representatives, the Coast Guard, or any public official—speak on the West Philippine Sea and the Arbitral Award, we are doing our job.”
JV Ejercito signed up for the resolution, asserting that Tarriela was simply doing his job in defending the country’s sovereignty and territory.
By the widest stretch of my imagination, I cannot fathom how insulting a head of another state a part of a coast guard’s and a senator’s job.
Ten other senators signed the resolution, who by sheer acquiescence validated mob rule over reason.
Department of Foreign Affairs
Secretary Maria Teresa Lazaro, however, put a halt to the international embarrassment the Philippines that a uniformed coast-guard personnel member has been taking advantage of because of the absence of a clear and resolute government position as to what our existing foreign policy is towards China.
“The Department takes the considered view that Philippine government officials must also act professionally and in prudent fashion even when faced with opposing views,” she said in a formal reply to Senator Hontiveros.
Most importantly, Lazaro defined what is meant by ‘professionally’.
“In interacting with foreign governments, both language and action should be firm and assertive in conveying the national position but also measured and composed in tone. Our statements should consistently position the Philippine government as taking the higher ground.”
In the earlier paragraph, she also defined what the ‘national or government position’ means:
“As foreign policy and diplomatic relations are the remit of the Department, statement it issues are deliberate, consistent and anchored on existing foreign policy and instructions of the President. We would not generally take part in statement of other agencies and officials, particularly if these may have been in personal or unofficial capacity.”
With this closing, the DFA Secretary buried Tarriela’s six feet under the ground:
“Foreign heads of state and government, in particular, should be off-limits or at least treated with respect, regardless of our personal view.
American provocateur
Raymond Powell, who serves as Tarriela’s foreign handler and who appears as the marionette pulling the strings over the coast guard commodore, does not believe so.
The provocateur laughed off Lazaro’s letter reply to Senator Hontiveros, saying “This reveals Beijing’s staggering insecurity, its contempt for the Philippines’ democratic system, and its deep hypocrisy regarding diplomatic norms.”
Correcting the DFA Secretary, Powell said “This is Beijing’s diplomatic double standard at play: violent threats against foreign leaders are acceptable diplomacy, but when democratically elected officials and independent non-profit watchdogs state facts about international maritime law and direct foreign interference, they must be silenced.”
The retired US Air Force Colonel even instructed Madam Lazaro on what she instead must do, “The embassy’s attempt to intimidate its critics and interfere with its host country’s political system is precisely why former diplomat Jim Carouso and I recently argued that the Philippines should consider adopting a system similar to Australia’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.
Powell tells Lazaro off, ”In Australia, organizations like the Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China that explicitly carry out influence operations at the behest of foreign government are designated as foreign agents—they are recognized as state-directed instruments, not independent community groups.
Powell-Carpio’s intrigue base
Retired magistrate Antonio Carpio immediately mimics Powell’s direction, saying it was high time to amend the Foreign Agent Registration Act of 1979 to identify Filipinos propagating pro-Beijing narratives.
Carpio explained that by amending the law, Filipinos who have business dealings with China would be required to register as a foreign agent accredited “to propagate [and] disseminate the view of China in the Philippines.’
“It should be updated so that these people will be compelled to register… If you don’t register, you will be subjected to penalty, imprisonment, and fine,” he added.
Powell’s intrigue and Carpio’s selective mind capitalizes on the Filipinos’ short memory but misses out on a very incriminating footnote.
Herman Tiu Laurel writing for Pinoy Expose, recollects that “While (President Marcos Jr) was visiting Beijing (January 2023), another event was going on in Manila – the launching of ‘Project Myoushu’ by Stratbase, another US-funded local think tank.
“It was from this date forward that the Philippines adopted the “Assertive Transparency” (strategy) against China as enumerated by retired US Air Force colonel, Ray Powell of the Gordian Knot Institute for National Security Innovation, a newbie US academic center founded only in November 30, 2021 based in Standford University in California, with deep ties to the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).”
As an adjunct of the US Office Naval Research, its objective is to strengthen and boost international support to countries to shame China: “Assertive transparency involves embedding foreign and local media in Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) missions to ‘document’ and propagandize the imagined ‘grayzone tactics’ of the Chinese Coast Guard’s maritime enforcement methods.”
If we want peace in the South China Seas. Powell must be deported.
Powell’s echo chamber
Let’s talk transparency.
Just a month after the launching of Project Myoushu and Marcos’ visit to China, clashes between the PCG and the CCG started to erupt within the contested areas in the South China Sea. The PCG and US-proxy ‘civil society’ groups like ‘Atin Ito’ also forayed into the game along with the media to provoke maritime incidents with China.
Chinese Embassy research says, “Since 2023, he has pumped out more than 6,000 social media posts, encouraging some in the Philippines to turn this initiative into state policy, sending vessels into sensitive waters, embedding journalists, and pushing selectively edited footage to inflame public sentiment. This has been a key driver of rising tensions, damaged China-Philippines relations, and undermined regional stability.”
Carpio may also have to explain his dalliance with Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute which is an adjunct of the Center for Strategic and International Studies which is a lobbyist of the Deep State (US military industrial complex), and where he got the money to publish his expensive coffee table book of maps surrounding the Murillo-Velarde map that he is peddling.
Rappler, Vera Files, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and other US grant recipients would have to divulge the funds they have been receiving from the National Endowment for Democracy, Omidyar Network, US-AID, other foundations and government agencies being used as money exchanges coming from the America Compete Act.
Tarriela may have to confirm or deny if he is receiving ten million pesos of honoraria and operational funds a month from any of these sources.
Akbayan and other red-tagged party lists and NGOs may have to disclose their crowdfunding too, and confirm or deny whether they are getting funds from Loida Nicolas in the US laundered through the sisters of former President Benigno Aquino III, and from government officials and private sponsors from Taiwan.
Note that Hontiveros in May 2023 and Tarriela in July 2025 went to Taipei to discuss with Taiwan presidents Tsai Ing-Wen and Ching Lai-te, respectively, geopolitics security matters among others.
Tarriela has also been a Japanese scholar at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) the Japan Coast Guard Academy in Tokyo and a fellow of the East-Wesst center in Washington DC.
I wish this would cover government offices so that we can have an explanation why the US Embassy is virtually running the Philippine Coast Guard from US Homeland Security appropriations. The PCG also receives generous grants through the Official Development Assistance (ODA) from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan must also confirm or deny whether Project Myoushu, is already a simulated war between the Chinese Coast Guard and the Philippine Coast Guard as pawns of both US and Japanese official grantors.
Embassy closure
Ji Lingpeng, spokesman of the embassy, said there is “no need to go through such trouble” for senators passing a resolution calling out the ambassador because “the Philippine president could simply declare” him persona non grata. That is the most straightforward approach, Ji said.
If he were to receive such notice from President Marcos, Ambassador Jing Quan interjected that he would depart immediately, with ‘immense pride and honor.’
If he leaves, however, Jing said “I am taking my whole staff with me, closing the Chinese Embassy in Manila. We move as one. We would continue, without hesitation, to push back slanders and smears against China through various channels.”
Jing had spent 29 years as a career diplomat, including 23 years on US affairs. Even in many difficult moments between Beijing and Washington including closing consulates, expelling diplomats, meeting sanctions, and fighting trade wars and prejudicial legislations in Capitol Hill, Counsellor Ji said the ambassador never blinked.
Jing first came to Washington DC in 2004, serving as an officer in the embassy while a visiting fellow of the Brookings Institute one of the oldest American think-tank in the United States, founded in 1916.
He knows the American psychology very well.
Conclusion
Today’s final word comes from the President of the Philippines, himself the chief architect of the country’s foreign policy.
“The President’s answer is ‘no,’ ” Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro told reporters yesterday in Filipino, when asked about the moves of certain lawmakers to declare the Chinese envoy persona non grata over his recent pronouncements.
Marcos favors a “firm with diplomacy” strategy, aiming to defend Philippine sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea while keeping communication lines open.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Lazaro noted that “Such an action is an option of last resort, second only to downgrading of relations when diplomatic relations with a certain country have seriously fractured that no intervening remedy can stabilize the interaction and engagement,” Lazaro said in a statement read by Castro.
On the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) senior officials’ meeting in Cebu last week, Leo Herrera-Lim, our foreign affairs undersecretary for policy met with Hou Yanqi, director-general for boundary and ocean affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, to exchange views on the Implementation of the Declaration on the Code of Conduct in the SCS and regional and international issues of mutual interest.
In a separate statement, the Chinese embassy in Manila said the talks “marked the resumption of political dialogue between the two countries after more than a year-long hiatus.”
The diplomats won, and the clowns lost.
Miserably at that!
Next: Devoid of narrative, warmongers drum up old WPS tales
Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan
is former diplomat who served as press attaché and spokesman of the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC and the Philippines’ Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York from April 1986 to 1993. Presently, he is vice-president for international affairs of the Asian Century Philippines Institute, a geopolitical analyst, author of books, columnist, a print and broadcast journalist, and a hobby-organic-farmer.
His best sellers, A Problem for Every Solution (2015), a characterization of factors affecting Philippine-China relations, and No Vaccine for a Virus called Racism (2020) a survey of international news attempting to tracing its origins, earned for him an international laureate in the Awards for the Promotion of Philippine-China Understanding in 2021. His third book, The Poverty of Power is now available – a historiography of controversial issues of spanning 36 years leading to the Demise of the Edsa Revolution and the Forthcoming Rise of a Philippine Phoenix.
Today he is anchor for many YouTube Channels, namely Ang Maestro Lectures @Katipunan Channel (Saturdays), Unfinished Revolution (Sundays) and Opinyon Online (Wednesdays) with Ka Mentong Laurel, and Ipa-Rush Kay Paras with former Secretary Jacinto Paras (Tuesdays and Thursdays). His personal vlog is @AdoPaglinawan.
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Email: contact@asiancenturyph.com
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