And so it goes on...

This happens all the time, one or the other would be better for foreigners but maybe Filipinos are happy flip-flopping.

Duterte isn't the best of English speakers, put on the spot during a media conference or suchlike it's easier for him to lapse into his native tongue as it requires less thought, a lot of well educated Pinoys speak one or the other without lapsing into taglish.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...allenge-china-at-sea-unless-it-drills-for-oil

The mother in law’s boss does it a lot during his environmental talks. Flips between the two. Very annoying.

It is everywhere in the Philippines.
Crazy.

He's not so good at speaking Tagalog, only English and Visayan.

He isn't fluent in English either though to be truthful.

He should stick to his native language 'Visayan' but then the Tagalog people would not understand him. Yeah his English is poor but better than my Visayan.

His native language will be Chinese soon

The salami slice strategy...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China's_salami_slicing

https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject....erte-cayetano-south-china-sea-intl/index.html

https://www-aljazeera-com.cdn.amppr...ge-on-south-china-sea-dispute-draws-criticism

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/philip...rte-obama-son-of-a-bitch-i-will-swear-at-you/

Disconnect twixt tongue and brain

China is STILL our friend
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...e-says-china-still-a-benefactor-amid-tensions

I guess Duterte isn't the only one with tourettes
https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject....profanity-south-china-sea-intl-hnk/index.html

Its not all going China's way
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/b...re-falling-apart-and-sinking-ocean-132047?amp

From a military point of view the islands are not easy to defend Japan learned the hard way during WW2 that islands far from the mainland are not easy to keep supplied or defended and does not have a aircraft carrier force large or modern to threaten the U.S carrier groups and while the do have nukes the don't have the range or capacity to hit the USA.

Well, I hope the islands do crumble and are washed away and sink. But this just a rumor according to the link.
I agree, those island are hard to defend.

https://www.onenews.ph/duterte-challenges-carpio-to-a-debate