MANILA — Mamamayang Liberal Partylist Rep. Leila de Lima has issued a strongly worded response to remarks by the Chinese Embassy in Manila, accusing its spokesperson of benefiting from freedoms in the Philippines that she says are not available in China.

On Wednesday, Ji Lingpeng, spokesperson for the embassy, said De Lima’s comments “confused truth with falsehood and misled the general public,” and called her remarks “erroneous.” Ji also defended Philippine Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela, arguing that he had initiated public exchanges with China, and criticized legislators who had labeled China a “bully,” called the embassy a “bad guest” or a “troll farm,” and even threatened to declare Chinese diplomats “persona non grata.”

In a detailed statement on Thursday, the former senator directly addressed the embassy’s criticisms and raised concerns about diplomatic conduct and freedom of speech. “Funny how the Chinese Embassy spokesperson is enjoying not only freedom of speech in a country hosting him as a guest, even when he cannot practice that same freedom in his own country controlled by a one-party dictatorship,” De Lima said. “In fact, he is in a better footing than Filipinos themselves for which that freedom is guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution.”

De Lima also referred to the legal protections afforded to diplomats, arguing that immunity should not be misused. “By being our diplomatic guest, he is immune from libel, unlike the ordinary Filipino who can be sued for the abuse of freedom of speech. This is the travesty confronting us right now in the face of the belligerent ‘wolf warriors’—so called—nesting inside the Chinese Embassy who attack our officials the same way their ship-borne counterparts attack Filipinos in our own EEZ.”

She further suggested that there were limits to the protection extended to foreign diplomats under international norms. “This already constitutes an abuse not only of our constitutional freedoms but of the diplomatic immunity we honor them with as our guests. May I remind them that there is a limit to their abuse of immunity, because reminding them of the limits of free speech is useless, free speech being alien to them as China was never a democracy in any meaningful sense in its long history.”

In her closing remarks, De Lima emphasized Philippine sovereignty. “It seems they really think we are a province of China, and that they are the provincial party leaders enforcing communist laws. To the officials of the Chinese Embassy: You are NOT in China. This is the Philippines. Here, we kick dictators out, not worship them.”

The clash between De Lima and Ji highlights growing tensions in Manila over Beijing’s assertive stance in the disputed waters, with lawmakers vowing to protect national sovereignty despite Beijing’s diplomatic pushback.

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