Photo courtesy: Jay Tarriela, via Facebook.
What exactly is PCG spokesperson Jay Tristan Tarriela trying to achieve by spewing distorted narratives, insults, and outright lies against China and President Xi Jinping—at a time when the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Tourism (DOT) are desperately working to approve e-visas and a two-week visa-free entry for Chinese nationals?
The contradiction is glaring, and the hypocrisy is deafening.
On one hand, the Marcos administration is quietly courting Chinese tourists, fully aware that pre-pandemic Chinese arrivals generated over USD 2.5 billion in tourism revenues, sustaining hotels, transport workers, restaurants, and small businesses. On the other hand, its loudest mouthpieces are allowed—if not encouraged—to provoke, insult, and demonize the very country whose citizens the government is begging to return.
This is not foreign policy. This is incoherence dressed up as patriotism.
If the administration truly believes that antagonizing China is necessary, then it should have the spine to abandon its tourism ambitions outright. But it won’t—because the economy is fragile, the deficit is widening, and the promises of “economic recovery” ring hollow without foreign inflows. So instead, the government plays both sides: friendly behind closed doors, hostile on the microphone.
What we are witnessing is not strength—it is desperation.
These attacks are not acts of bravery or principle; they are excuses clothed as “deception”, deployed whenever the administration is criticized for its failures: rising prices, stagnant wages, mounting debt, and zero meaningful reforms. When governance falters, distraction becomes policy.
This is the formula:
Create an external enemy.
Amplify fear and outrage.
Brand critics as unpatriotic.
Distract the public from incompetence.
Jay Tristan Tarriela’s rhetoric is not accidental—it is symptomatic. He is merely executing a script handed down by an administration that prefers noise over accountability, spectacle over solutions and deception over responsibility.
Plain and simple, this is irresponsibility elevated to state behavior.
You cannot insult your way into economic recovery.
You cannot provoke your way into diplomatic credibility.
And you certainly cannot deceive a public that is already struggling to survive.
The Filipino people deserve consistency, honesty, and competence—not propaganda masquerading as “nationalism”.
