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The Philippines
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Philippines-China sea dispute moves to legal battlefield with cyber libel suit

Top Philippine coastguard official takes action against pro-Beijing influencer for claiming that he is a paid US asset

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Philippine Coast Guard spokesman for the South China Sea Commodore Jay Tarriela in August 2024. Tarriela has dismissed “absurd” claims he is a paid US asset. Photo: AFP
Raissa Robles
The Philippines’ maritime dispute with China has spilled into the courts after a top coastguard official filed a cyber libel case against a pro-Beijing influencer over explosive – and, he claims, baseless – allegations that he is a paid asset of the United States.

Commodore Jay Tarriela, spokesman for Philippine Coast Guard operations in the West Philippine Sea, lodged a complaint on Friday at the Manila prosecutor’s office against Sass Rogando Sasot, a popular vlogger currently based in Beijing.

The case is unprecedented: the first known libel lawsuit arising directly from the online information war surrounding the Philippines’ increasingly fraught stand-off with China in the contested South China Sea.
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According to Tarriela’s complaint, Sasot falsely accused him on social media of receiving a US$4 million “talent fee” from Washington, and of collecting bags of cash from the residence of House Speaker Martin Romualdez as payment for criticising Beijing’s actions in the West Philippine Sea – Manila’s term for the part of the South China Sea it claims as its own.

She also alleged he had been expelled from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) for cheating.

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In an interview with This Week in Asia, Tarriela said the accusations had taken a deep personal toll. “Absolutely,” he said, when asked if the claims had affected his family.

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