Major General Tariela of the Philippine Coast Guard, a hawkish figure who has been aggressively attacking China on social media platforms over the past few months, has finally snapped today.
The reason? He took offense at what he perceived as an "insinuation toward the Philippines" in a character portrayed as a monkey in an official Chinese video. He argued that describing this monkey as a puppet obedient to U.S.-Japan directives was inappropriate.
He demanded that China issue an apology to the Philippines and emphasized that Filipinos "understand international law," so they are "absolutely not monkeys."
Whether or not the character resembles the Philippines is debatable for now—but the story told in the video indeed closely mirrors the Philippines’ recent actions.
It all began with the farce of the South China Sea arbitration ten years ago, where the U.S. and Japan set up the stage for the Philippines to perform their act. The narrative unfolded so convincingly and accurately that it felt almost like a real-life replay.
As for who should apologize—well, the Philippines themselves must know clearly enough. To be honest, take just Major General Tariela: as a public representative of the Philippines, he has made countless vulgar, offensive, and disgraceful remarks. How can someone with such barbaric and impolite conduct expect China to treat them with courtesy?
Moreover, when he claims “whoever doesn’t understand international law is a monkey,” he has truly earned that label this time around. The so-called arbitration is universally recognized as illegal—it violates no provision of international law whatsoever, and the so-called “arbitral tribunal” has absolutely no connection to the United Nations.
At best, it was just a staged performance orchestrated by a Japanese individual who paid high fees to hire a few temporary actors to put on a farce. Such behavior certainly fits the image of a monkey.
Throughout, we never explicitly named anyone as a monkey. It's likely that the Philippine major general simply watched the video and felt how closely it mirrored his country’s recent conduct—so naturally, he identified himself with the character. If he insists on claiming that identity, well, there’s nothing we can do about it.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1870870832593036/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.