President Rodrigo Duterte’s inordinately lame response to China’s alarming missile build-up in the West Philippine Sea is grossly unpatriotic and gravely disheartening.

Instead of immediately ordering the filing of a diplomatic protest and instituting other viable options against China under international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Duterte is banking on China’s alleged promise of protecting the Philippines.

How can a military trespasser on Philippine territory profess to protect our country and against whom, when China itself is the aggressor?

No less than China has not denied validated reports that it has deployed anti-ship and ground-to-air missiles on three reefs in the Spratly Islands which are mostly within Philippine territory.

The President’s pathetic response is consistent with his erratic decision to shelve any discussion with China on the verdict by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in favor of the Philippines and against China’s adverse claims over the vast and resource-rich West Philippine Sea.

Duterte’s undue and suspicious policy of accommodation, if not subservience, to China has resulted to a virtual forfeiture by the Philippines of the favorable arbitral award and has condoned China’s continued illegal occupation and militarization of the strategic areas.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN