The Philippine government denounced the “racist” and “dehumanizing” depiction of Filipinos as a monkey under US and Japanese control by the state-run China Daily days before the 10th anniversary of the arbitral award that upheld Manila’s sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. was among the first Filipino officials to publicly condemn the China Daily Facebook post, saying it exposed the “moral and intellectual bankruptcy of China’s propaganda machine.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Friday said it had lodged a formal diplomatic protest against “a series of op-ed videos and editorial cartoons on the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award, particularly a video the state-owned outlet published on its Facebook page on 10 July 2026.”
China Daily had “gone beyond legitimate political debate by resorting to demeaning, dehumanizing, and racist depictions of Filipinos,” the DFA said in a statement.
It said that Foreign Undersecretary Leo Herrera-Lim first raised the issue directly with Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan during a meeting on Thursday, where the Filipino official demanded that the offensive materials be removed.
The statement did not say what the ambassador’s response was.
A Chinese Embassy spokesperson in Manila told the French news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP), that it “noted” the Philippine government’s reaction to the China Daily post. The video remained on the China Daily Facebook page Friday night.
In the 58-second clip, a timid monkey wearing the traditional Filipino barong is shoved onto a karaoke stage on a boat.
When it begins singing lyrics that seem to agree with China’s position on recent maritime delimitation talks between Manila and Tokyo, a voice shouts “wrong song” and hands it a sheet labeled “South China Sea Arbitration Award.”
Arms bearing US and Japanese flags then put the monkey in a catapult and sent it flying toward a China Coast Guard ship’s water cannon, which blasted it. The Chinese often use their ships’ water cannons to drive away Filipino sailors and fisherfolk from maritime zones Beijing claims. A whale emerges from the water, saying the sheet of paper should not litter the sea.
The July 12, 2016 arbitral ruling upheld Philippine sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea, waters within the country’s 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone. It invalidated China’s claims to nearly the entire South China Sea, saying that its nine-dash-line demarcation had no legal basis.
Beijing refused to participate in the arbitration case filed by Manila in January 2013 and continues to reject the ruling.
In an open letter on Friday, the Philippine Embassy in Beijing demanded that China Daily take down the video.
It said that the depiction of Filipinos as monkeys was “deeply offensive, distressing, and unacceptable.”
“Disagreement over legal and political issues does not justify resorting to disturbing imagery, which has no place in the civil public discourse of a responsible state,” it said.
“Such imagery and misinformation breach editorial norms and principles. They only serve to widen the distrust between the Philippines and China,” it added.
In separate statements on Thursday, Teodoro and Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Rear Adm. Jay Tarriela, the PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, lambasted China Daily’s anti-Filipino “propaganda.”
Teodoro said China Daily’s post was “a revealing insight into what the Chinese communist apparatus thinks of the Filipino people.”
“This mockery of the lawful 2016 Arbitral Award and the video’s glorification of violence against the Filipino people and soldiers expose the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of China’s propaganda machine,” he said.
Failure to defend claim
Teodoro said the post underscored Manila’s “justified” policy of suspending ministerial-level and Armed Forces of the Philippines defense engagements or contacts with the Chinese Communist Party and its agencies.
The defense chief, who has been barred from entering any Chinese territory, accused Beijing of resorting to “racism, threats, and manufactured hatred” because it “utterly failed to defend its ridiculous claims through reason, evidence, or law.”
The video showed that China was “neither a secure and confident actor nor a trustworthy neighbor,” Teodoro added.
Tarriela on Friday challenged Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Robinhood Padilla, who said he had “crossed the line” when he used a caricature of Chinese President Xi Jinping to demonstrate China’s policy in the maritime dispute with the Philippines in a lecture earlier this year, to also seek an apology from Beijing for the China Daily post.
Tarriela said the China Daily video was fundamentally different from the caricatures he used during his January lecture, arguing that the former constituted a racist attack against Filipinos and his images were satire.
A monkey wearing a barong Tagalog and a “salakot” represents all Filipinos, he said.
The Chinese called Filipinos “stupid monkeys” and undermined the Philippines’ decision to settle its maritime dispute with China before an international arbitral tribunal in 2013, he said.
“They wanted to show that we are just a low class of people who are being dictated by a stronger country,” he said. “Calling us monkeys is unacceptable.”
The National Maritime Council (NMC) said that the maritime rights and entitlements of the country in the West Philippine Sea “cannot be altered by propaganda, disinformation or offensive portrayals.”
Senators push back
The NMC, which coordinates the government’s maritime security policies and raises public awareness of China’s actions in Philippine waters, warned that replacing reasoned discourse with ridicule only “erodes trust, inflames public sentiment, and undermines constructive engagement necessary for achieving peace and stability.”
Several lamakers, including Padilla, also pushed back against the Chinese video.
He said in a statement that China’s depiction of the Filipinos was “unacceptable.”
“Freedom of expression and political discourse must never become an excuse for racism, dehumanization, or attacks on the dignity of any people,” Padilla said. “Depicting Filipinos in such an offensive manner is unacceptable and deserves unequivocal condemnation.”
Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan lamented that China, “an emerging global power whose citizens have also faced widespread discrimination and racism,” had engaged in racist and demeaning attacks against Filipinos. He said its state media should act with “respect and accountability.”
“Instead of promoting understanding and mutual respect, this kind of propaganda not only insults the Filipino people but also undermines China’s aspiration to be recognized as a responsible and respected leader in the international community,” Pangilinan said.
Senate President Sherwin “Win” Gatchalian condemned the “abuse and mockery of Filipinos’ dignity” and said that freedom of expression should not be weaponized for racism and dehumanization.
“Disagreements between nations should sharpen our reasoning, not our prejudices,” Gatchalian said.
Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri also said the video “glorified” violence against Filipinos.
“China has crossed the line, but we will take the high road and refuse to answer such provocation with the same contempt,” he said in a statement.
Boundless ‘arrogance’
The senator noted that Manila and Beijing can disagree over the West Philippine Sea, but the dispute should not “descend into racism and dehumanization.”
“Disputes are settled by law, evidence and diplomacy, not by intimidation, threats and crude propaganda,” Zubiri added.
At the House, Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima said that the video showed how high China thinks of itself, and how low it views the Philippines. She said that Beijing’s “arrogance knows no bounds.”
But, she added, it also shows Beijing’s frustration and insecurity as Manila has not relented in holding on to its maritime rights to the West Philippine Sea.
“This is another act that reflects the mindset of an entitled bully,” De Lima said. —WITH REPORTS FROM ISABELLE PECHAY, MARC ANDRE ESGUERRA, LUISA CABATO, GABRIEL PABICO LALU AND INQUIRER RESEARCH
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