Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Wednesday rejected the suggestion of his predecessor, former DFA Secretary Albert Del Rosario, to bring the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2020 to make China pay for the crimes it committed in the South China Sea.

“It doesn't make any sense so I rejected it,” Locsin said during the virtual pre-State of the Nation Address (SONA) media briefing.

Locsin admitted that he already heard about the proposal of Del Rosario and stood firm that his previous reaction would be the same as his reaction today.

“We won it already. Why would you want to re-litigate something that you won,” the DFA secretary said.

The country's top diplomat raised the possibility that the award might become a “question of numbers” if the Philippines brings it to the UN. China sits as one of the five permanent members of the UN's powerful Security Council along with France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation.

“We don't need to go back to the UN. Bring it back to the UN and it becomes a question of numbers,” he said.

The DFA chief explained that the arbitral ruling is an issue of law and has nothing to do with numbers.

“I'm a lawyer so I have this profound respect for the law,” he added.

On July 14, 2020, Del Rosario, in a statement, called on President Duterte to fulfill his earlier promise to raise the issue of the Arbitral Award before the UN where the Philippines can seek redress for China’s non-compliance to the July 2016 ruling of the court in The Hague.

Del Rosario, who served as DFA secretary during the Aquino administration, was one of the chief architects of the successful Philippine petition filed before the Permanent Court of Arbitration that sought to nullify China’s outrageous “nine-dash line” claim in the South China Sea.