President’s Cabinet revamp retains defense chief, a vocal critic of China

Philippines’ Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will retain Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr., who is among the most vocal critics of China in Asia, as Marcos presses on with a midterm overhaul of his Cabinet, a senior official said yesterday.

Teodoro, who has strongly echoed Marcos’ criticisms of China’s increasingly assertive actions in the South China Sea, will remain in his post, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin told a news conference.

Maj. Gen. Nicolas Torre III will be the next chief of the 232,000-member national police.

Torre led the arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte in March and his turnover to International Criminal Court detention in The Netherlands for his deadly anti-drug crackdowns, Bersamin said.

Last year, Torre oversaw the arrest of Philippine religious leader Apollo Quiboloy, a key Duterte supporter who was placed on the FBI’s most-wanted list after being indicted for sexual abuses and trafficking in the U.S. Torre would take over his retiring predecessor, Gen. Rommel Marbil.

Marcos asked all of his Cabinet secretaries last week to submit resignations in what the government said was a “bold reset” of his administration following the May 12 midterm elections, which saw more opposition candidates win crucial Senate seats.

Marcos, the 67-year-old son of a late Philippine dictator overthrown in 1986, won the presidency in the deeply divided Southeast Asian country by a landslide in 2022 in a stunning political comeback as he made a steadfast call for national unity. But his equally popular vice-presidential running mate, Sara Duterte, later had a falling out with him that has sparked intense political discord.

With support from friendly countries including the U.S., a treaty ally, Marcos emerged as the most vocal critic of China’s actions in the disputed South China Sea while contending with an array of longstanding domestic issues including inflation, delayed fulfillment of a campaign promise to bring down the price of rice and many reports of kidnappings and other crimes.

Teodoro told The Associated Press in March that China’s aggressive policies in the disputed waters were now considered the greatest threat to the Philippines’ national security and should also be regarded as a global threat because it could choke a trade route that is crucial for global supply chains.

“The greatest external threat actually is Chinese aggression, Chinese expansionism and the attempt by China to change the international law through the use of force or acquiescence … or its attempt to reshape the world order to one that it controls,” Teodoro told the AP.

Bersamin, who serves as executive secretary to Marcos and the Cabinet, has not specified the reasons for each Cabinet change but said “the president has no patience for under performance.”

Bersamin said last week that Marcos decided to replace Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo with Foreign Undersecretary Theresa Lazaro, who has relayed Philippine protests and led talks with Chinese officials concerning an alarming spike of confrontations between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and naval forces in recent years.

China claims virtually the entire South China Sea, a key global trade and security route despite a 2016 international arbitration ruling initiated by the Philippines that invalidated those expansive claims based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also are involved in the long-seething territorial standoffs regarded as a flashpoint in Asia. JIM GOMEZ, MANILA, MDT/AP