If our relations with China are at their lowest ever, and if Filipinos are livid at the superpower for its purported bullying, our top diplomat, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, should to a great extent be blamed.

That’s the only conclusion one would get from the report of Senator Antonio Trillanes 3rd as President Benigno S. Aquino’s “backchannel” envoy to China from May to August 2012. Trillanes said that he had 14 back-channel meetings, seven of which were in China and seven in Manila.