Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said the Chinese Embassy was wrong for calling his recent statement regarding its decision to include the country in its tourism blacklist as "misinformation."
The embassy on Wednesday issued a clarification on Zubiri's statement saying that China has not placed the Philippines on the blacklist for tourism destinations for the continued operations of offshore gaming operators (POGOs).
"The report of 'tourist blacklist' is misinformation. China has not placed the Philippines on its blacklist for tourism," it said.
During a virtual interview with reporters, Zubiri stood by his statement that Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian mentioned the word "blacklisting" during their meeting last Monday.
"I was shocked by the turnaround. I was shocked by the statement of the Embassy and it’s regrettable because we had several witnesses," he said.
"Maybe mali po sa pagsabi na misinformation. I think it should’ve just been a clarification. 'Misinformation' lumalabas na para akong Marites na nagbibigay ng maling information or fake news. 'Di naman fake news 'yon, daming nakinig sa kanya buti sana kung kaming dalawa lang," he added.
[Maybe it's wrong to call it misinformation. I think it should’ve just been a clarification. 'Misinformation' seems like I am giving wrong information or fake news. That is not fake news because there are other people who heard him, it's not just the two of us.]
According to Zubiri, Senators Sherwin Gatchalian and Robin Padilla, and other Senate staff present during the meeting can testify that the word "blacklisting" was used several times by the Chinese envoy.
"The fault lies with the ambassador. He mentioned blacklisting. Siguro nagkamali ang ambassador. Pero we stand by our statement na binanggit ng ambassador ang word na blacklisting several times," he said.
[Maybe the ambassador made a mistake. But we stand by our statement that the ambassador mentioned the word blacklisting several times.]
"Maybe we were misinformed by the ambassador possibly. Kaya may witnesses eh. Tatatlo kaming senador nandun di naman siguro ako gagawa ng kwento," he added.
[There were witnesses. I won't be making up stories, there were three of us senators there.]
Despite this, Zubiri said he will not ask for an apology from Huang but would rather have him issue a categorical statement regarding the blacklisting of countries that still caters POGO.
