MANILA, Philippines — The country "can no longer afford to have a president who is going to set aside the fight in the West Philippine Sea (WPS)," the Philippine Coast Guard spokesman for the WPS said on Thursday. Commodore Jay Tarriela said the maritime dispute with China should be a chief issue in choosing the country’s next leader. Despite Beijing's massive misinformation and disinformation attempts, Tarriela said the government’s transparency efforts in reporting the real situation have made Filipinos “fully aware” that the WPS should be an election issue in 2028. For Tarriela, work should be doubled, to continuously get the support of the international community and make use of the 2016 Arbitral Award to leverage the country’s position. “We all know for a fact that the sitting president is the chief architect of our foreign policy. And since President Ferdinand Marcos [Jr.] was elected with his first policy statement of not surrendering a square inch of [our] territory to any foreign power, that remains to be very strong,” Tarriela said during the Stratbase ADR Forum on Thursday. “If we're going to have another president in the next six years after 2028, who's going to set aside our fight, who's not going to engage the United States and even the European Union, and would still choose to go to China five times than any other president, I think that would be very bad for our fight,” he added. Propaganda war by China Just like former Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Tarriela said the fight in the WPS was intergenerational and should not falter with constant change in government. “Knowing for a fact that the issue in the West Philippine Sea will not go away by 2028 or the moment that President Ferdinand Marcos [Jr.] steps down and the next president succeeded him. He added that through education campaigns, a sense of patriotism would be embedded into the minds of young Filipinos, strong enough to make them choose the right leaders come the time.