‘Province of China’ banners a grave affront

CRITICS of the Duterte administration thought they got what they wanted on July 12, the second anniversary of the Philippines’ legal victory in its maritime dispute with China.

Trolls — there is no other appropriate term to describe them — devised a twisted way of reminding the public that Manila had prevailed over Beijing in a United Nations-backed arbitration tribunal, which invalidated on July 12, 2016 China’s so-called nine-dash line that claimed almost the entire South China Sea.