I grimace at the thought of how China's apologists, agents and fifth columnists deal with the landmark ruling by the arbitral tribunal with such subjectivity. They either reject or uphold it, depending on how it suits their master's interest. They tend to negate the arbitral award that largely favored the Philippines by citing China's refusal to participate in the arbitration, which, they claim, rendered the proceedings void from the beginning. But the argument is untenable since China, as a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), agreed to be bound by its decisions being the third-party arbitrator in the interpretation of the provisions of the convention.