If pact with China exists, PBBM says ‘I rescind that agreement now’
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday insisted the Philippines had no agreement with China to remove the BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal, contrary to Beijing’s claim, and said if such a deal existed, he would rescind it immediately.
“I’m not aware of any such arrangement or agreement that the Philippines will remove from its own territory its ship, in this case, the BRP Sierra Madre from the Ayungin Shoal,” President Marcos said, using the Filipino name for the Second Thomas Shoal in the West Philippine Sea.
The President issued this statement after China renewed its call for the Philippines to remove the grounded warship from Ayungin Shoal, which is well within the country’s exclusive economic zone.
Mr. Marcos added that he would repeal any commitment should there be an existing agreement.
“If there does exist such an agreement, I rescind that agreement now,” President Marcos said.
Earlier, National Security Council (NSC) Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya said they are still puzzled by China’s claim.
In a Laging Handa briefing, Malaya said everyone they have talked with regarding the matter—from the present to past administrations—has no idea of an agreement with China to remove the BRP Sierra Madre.
Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri, meanwhile, said the BRP Sierra Madre should be refurbished not just to ward off bullies from the north, but also to protect the Marines stationed there from natural calamities.
He guaranteed the Senate would support funding for such an undertaking.
“They deserve our unconditional support as they sacrifice themselves for us,” he said of the troops stationed on the grounded warship.
Senator Risa Hontiveros said she would support funding for such an effort too and said she would ensure that it is included in the 2024 national budget.
She also denounced China’s demand that the Philippines remove the ship.
“We will never allow anyone to forcibly take that vessel out of our own waters,” Hontiveros said, saying that Chinese arrogance was the cause of “deep instability” in the region.
In the latest incident, Chinese Coast Guard ships fired water cannons at Filipino boats that were resupplying the troops on Ayungin Shoal.
In the face of widespread Philippine and international condemnation for its recent actions, China has not apologized, but doubled down onits illegal claims to sovereignty over the shoal, referring once again to its nine-dash line claim that the Permanent Court of Arbitration invalidated in 2016.
But Hontiveros said countries must analyze everything that comes out of China’s mouth, saying it is full of lies and manipulation.
“How can we negotiate with Beijing when she acts in bad faith? ” she said.
The Philippine military deliberately grounded the BRP Sierra Madre on Second Thomas Shoal in the late 1990s in an effort to check the advance of China in the hotly contested waters.
The unorthodox tactic to establish the Philippine presence on the shoal was in response to China’s illegal occupation of the nearby and then-uninhabited Mischief Reef, also claimed by Manila, a few years earlier.
Beijing has turned Mischief Reef and other reefs and outcrops into artificial, militarized islands to assert its claims in the waters.
Ayungin Shoal, located in the Spratly Islands, is about 200 kilometers west of the western Philippine island of Palawan and more than 1,000 kilometers from China’s nearest major landmass of Hainan Island.
The Palawan provincial board on Wednesday denounced the firing of water cannons by the Chinese Coast Guard against Philippine vessels going to Ayungin Shoal for a resupply mission.
A board member, Juan Antonio Alvarez, said the CCG move was unacceptable and was a clear form of harassment.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, which includes Ayungin Shoal, and deploys hundreds of vessels there to patrol the waters and swarm reefs.
Beijing has ignored a 2016 international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
Manila says China’s coast guard and navy vessels routinely block or shadow Philippine ships patrolling the waters.
They also regularly attempt to disrupt re-supply operations to the tiny Philippine garrison on Ayungin Shoal, according to Manila.
The handful of Philippine Marines deployed on the BRP Sierra Madre depend upon those resupply missions to survive their remote assignment.
The Philippine Coast Guard fears China will seek to occupy Ayungin Shoal if the military detachment leaves.
The South China Sea is seen as a powder keg and many fear a miscalculation or accident could ignite a military conflict.
The Philippines is poorly armed, but the United States has said it would defend its longtime ally in the South China Sea under a decades-old mutual defense pact.
The US has no territorial claim over the waters, but has persisted in conducting its own patrols there, angering Beijing.
Washington says this is to ensure what it terms “freedom of navigation” in the sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes annually. With AFP