While he rejects assistance from the European Union (EU) because of alleged conditions related to his bloody campaign against drugs, he accepts Chinese pledges of aid and investments despite the overriding condition that the Philippines must not enforce against China the UN-supported arbitral decision of the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal adjudicating that the resource-rich and vast areas in the West Philippine Sea are part of Philippine territory and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), including Benham Rise, Spratlys and Panatag Shoal, among others.

While EU grants are historically delivered and implemented mostly in strife-torn Mindanao, the Chinese assistance is still merely contingent.

The worldwide concern on the unabated extrajudicial killings of drug suspects is merely being echoed by the European Union in the same manner that 45 out of the 47 members of the United Nations Human Rights Council have called for the end of the extra-judicial killings (EKJs) and endorsed the investigation of human rights violations.

EU Ambassador to the Philippines Franz Jessen previously clarified that EU’s serious concern on the on-going EJKs is not a conditionality of the grant which EU had committed to release just the same amounting to 250 million euros (P13.89 billion) up to 2020.

Accepting EU’s grants is not mendicancy because the grants are being offered without the Philippines begging for them.

The President’s rejection of EU aid was precipitately made without a collective consultation with his economic team.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN