Tarriela fires back vs. Padilla over West Philippine Sea claim

Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela responds to Sen. Robin Padilla’s post blaming him for a Chinese state-controlled media organization’s video depicting Filipinos as monkeys on July 17, 2026. (Courtesy: Jay Tarriela/Facebook)

Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela responded to Sen. Robin Padilla’s post blaming him for a Chinese state-controlled media organization’s video depicting Filipinos as monkeys.

“[W]ith all due respect, our transparency initiative is not wartime propaganda. It is simply a means to expose Chinese aggression and harassment — particularly against our Filipino fishermen and our PCG and BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources) vessels. We do not create the incidents; we only document them,” Tarriela on late Friday afternoon posted on social media.

“Secondly, I believe it is an insult to the more than 26 million Filipinos who voted for you that you accepted that we are monkeys,” he added in a mix of English and Filipino.

The PCG official wrote that Padilla’s statement echoes the perspective of the Chinese government, as they made and spread the video in question.

“I, as a Filipino, will never accept that our race is monkeys — and I also cannot accept that the next generation of our country is monkeys. The true respect for our race is to defend it — not to accept the insults. Filipinos are not monkeys!” Tarriela concluded.

The senator earlier posted that it was Tarriela who “drew first blood.”

“This escalation into wartime propaganda was your genius creation. As for the Chinese media, aren’t we all monkeys of different colors in the eyes of white colonizers/supremacists? Filipinos are brown, and Chinese and Japanese are yellow. We cannot deny our relativity to each other. Going down to Mr. Tarriela’s level is abandoning our Asian and Austronesian heritage,” Padilla wrote. — Rex Espiritu