National Unity Party (NUP) president LRay Villafuerte has “high hopes” that the naval drills of the United States (US) with Japan and Australia in the South China Sea (SCS) could be the prelude to the Philippines’ joint sails with these three allies, plus possibly South Korea, in the West Philippines Sea (WPS), which has been the center of nonstop, increasingly hostile behavior by China in violation of international laws.
“I have high hopes that the shared naval drills by the US, Japan and Australia in the SCS, along with the US’ stronger military cooperation with Japan and South Korea, will be the prelude to the Philippines’ joint maritime patrols with these formidable allies in those parts of our territorial waters that have been the focus of increasingly incursive actions by Chinese vessels, in blatant disregard of international laws on maritime borders, including the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea),” Villafuerte said.
Rather than just sending diplomatic protests to Beijing over the non-stop intrusions into the West Philippine Sea (WPS), Villafuerte said “the best approach for Manila at this point to better protect our seas is to double down on plans for joint patrols with the US and other close country-allies in our EEZ (exclusive economic zone) where, according to the Wescom (Armed Forces western command), over 400 foreign vessels have been spotted, most of them from China.”
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) WesCom chief Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos said last week there are “more than 400” foreign vessels within our EEZ, of which 85% are from China.
The DFA has fired off 445 notes verbale or diplomatic protests to the Chinese Embassy in Manila over the WPS intrusions since 2020, of which 35 were sent this year.
Villafuerte also welcomed the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)’s openness to expanding the planned joint patrols to include our Southeast Asian neighbors, saying “The DFA should set this plan in motion ASAP (as soon as possible).”
“As we hopefully undertake a fast-track modernization of our Armed Forces to beef up our external defense in the long term, our most feasible option for the time being to safeguard our EEZ and continental shelf amid the relentless intrusions by Chinese vessels is to conduct, sooner than later, joint maritime patrols in the WPS with the US and other close allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia that similarly want to uphold the rules-based international order in pursuit of regional peace and stability.”
Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said at a recent DFA budget hearing at the House that: “If there are proposals from other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, we would be very open to consider them. In principle, we believe joint coast guard patrols will be useful.”
Villafuerte said that, “As we hopefully undertake a fast-track modernization of our Armed Forces to beef up our external defense in the long term, our most feasible option for the time being to safeguard our EEZ and continental shelf amid the relentless intrusions by Chinese vessels is to conduct, sooner than later, joint maritime patrols in the WPS with the US and other close allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia that similarly want to uphold the rules-based international order in pursuit of regional peace and stability.”
A representative of Camarines Sur in the House of Representatives, Villafuerte expressed optimism that his earlier proposed multilateral maritime action is actually happening this year as Washington, Tokyo and Canberra were reported as planning joint naval drills in the SCS.
According to international news reports, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force would be deploying for the joint naval exercise one of its biggest warships, the helicopter carrier JS Izumo, while the US Navy and the Royal Australian Navy are sending their respective amphibious assault ships USS America and HMAS Canberra.
Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles is also visiting the Philippines to observe the separate joint landing and air assault drills of Australian and Filipino defense personnel at the SCS, which will involve the HMAS Canberra and another Australian navy vessel, the HMAS Anzac.
“Like the Philippines, Australia wants a peaceful, stable and prosperous region which respects sovereignty and which is guided by rules-based order,” Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Hae Kyong Yu said of the joint training exercises at the SCS.
As this developed, the heads of the US, Japan and South Korea condemned in their summit last week at Camp David in Maryland what they called the “dangerous and aggressive behavior” of China in the SCS.
In a joint statement released after their summit at the country retreat for the American president in Maryland, US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said: “Regarding the dangerous and aggressive behavior supporting unlawful maritime claims that we have recently witnessed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the South China Sea, we strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the waters of the Indo-Pacific.”
China has ignored the PCA’s 2016 arbitral award, and has been building man-made islands in the SCS, where its expansive claim of historic sovereignty overlaps not only with the EEZ of the Philippines but also with those of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
These three countries and Australia are among over a dozen states that were quick to denounce China following the Aug. 5 water-cannoning by a group of Chinese vessels of two civilian supply boats escorted by two Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) boats— BRP Malabrigo and BRP Cabra —that were on a Rotation and Resupply (RORE) mission for our Marines stationed at the grounded BRP Sierra Madre in the Ayungin Shoal.
The BRP Sierra Madre was moored at that atoll by the then-Estrada administration in 1999 to serve as our military outpost in the Ayungin Shoal, which is a part of the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) that belongs to our EEZ and continental shelf under the maritime border system put in place by the UNCLOS.
Our sovereignty and sovereign rights over those waters was upheld by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, The Netherlands in its arbitral award in 2016 that declared the WPS a part of our territorial waters, as it invalidated the expansive nine-dash-line claim by China that it owned 85% of the SCS.
Villafuerte recalled that two Filipino officials—Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez and, later, National Security Council (NSC) assistant director-general and National Task Force for the WPS (NTF-WPS) spokesman Jonathan Malaya—had confirmed plans about the Philippines’ joint maritime patrols in the WPS with the US and possibly other allies.
The Camarines Sur solon said he is more optimistic now that, with the joint naval drills of the three countries in the SCS and the outcome of the Camp David summit that criticized China’s dangerous acts in the SCS, the planned joint patrols are likely to become a multilateral arrangement of the Philippines not only with the US, but also likely with Japan, South Korea and Australia.
Villafuerte pointed to the urgency of firming up the joint patrols plan as the AFP warned the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) to stop interfering with its RORE missions to the BRP Sierra Madre, as it earlier bared plans to send another resupply trip to Ayungin Shoal in two weeks’ time.
The AFP is bracing for another Chinese attack at Ayungin Shoal after receiving a report that a CCG ship, which was spotted this week at the nearby Panganiban Reef, is expected to lead another blockade to abort the next RORE mission to the BRP Sierra Madre.
“They will block our resupply ships with several ships which are Coast Guard, including their fishing vessels, their maritime militia, to divert us from reaching the Ayungin Shoal,” AFP chief of staff General Romeo Brawner said on TV..
He said the joint maritime patrols with the US and possibly other similarly-minded allies are in sync with the findings of the latest independent survey by OCTA Research showing that 58% of Filipinos favor the expansion of US-Philippine military cooperation in the face of the external threats.
Villafuerte said that as for the outcome of the latest survey by Publicus Asia, 79% of Filipinos saw China as our “greatest threat,” and backed President Marcos’ policy of not yielding to its provocative actions in the WPS.
China has ignored the PCA’s 2016 arbitral award, and has been building man-made islands in the SCS, where its expansive claim of historic sovereignty overlaps not only with the EEZ of the Philippines but also with those of Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
It calls Ayungin Shoal as the Ren’Ai Reef, and claims it is part of its Nansha Island.
However, this shoal is just about 105 nautical miles west of Palawan but is 700 nautical miles from China’s nearest province of Hainan.
Villafuerte earlier scoffed at Beijing’s latest offer of a bilateral dialogue with Manila to ostensibly settle their maritime row, running it down as a mere “obfuscatory” tactic to blot out its water cannon attack on Philippine vessels en route to Ayungin Shoal that has drawn condemnation from our allies across the globe.
He said that in the short term, our government needs to focus on accelerating this external defense option, “rather than waste its time on Beijing’s obviously obfuscatory tactic to blot out the globally condemned water-cannoning by Chinese vessels of our coast guard and civilian supply boats on a RORE mission to Ayungin Shoal.”
Villafuerte issued this statement after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had, after the Aug. 5 incident, called for calm and urged Manila to engage Beijing in new discussions on “seek(ing) an effective way to defuse tensions in the South China Sea.”
The congressman was optimistic “our foreign affairs and military officials know that their Chinese counterparts have long been speaking with forked tongues when it comes to WPS concerns, and will certainly not fall for this trap of getting back at the negotiating table and putting on pause our government’s heightened efforts to protect our territorial waters.”
Besides, he said, “Further negotiations are likely to only trigger escalated Chinese military and paramilitary attacks on our soldiers and fisherfolk, judging from the outcomes of the three such diplomatic talks between Manila and Beijing this year alone—including a meeting between President Marcos and President Xi Jinping in China—were followed by even more hostile acts of incursions into our seas.”
“Fresh diplomatic talks that Beijing wants to initiate following its CCG’s latest attack on Philippine vessels will certainly go nowhere, as the Chinese are likely to make capital of such futile negotiations, in case we fall for it, to advance before the world their latest spurious claim that we have long committed to remove BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal,” Villafuerte said.
“This new Chinese claim that our government has promised to take our legit military outpost out of Ayungin Shoal is baloney and is meant only to obfuscate the fact that CCG vessels had no legitimate excuse whatsoever to water cannon our coast guard ships and military-hired civilian supply boats on a RORE mission for our soldiers stationed there,” he said.
“Subsequent developments after the Aug. 5 water cannon attack at Ayungin Shoal indicate that nobody from our side has any inkling as to what the Chinese are talking about with regard to sending home BRP Sierra Madre,” he said.
And granting, for the sake of argument, that such a commitment was indeed made by a Filipino negotiator in past diplomatic talks, Villafuerte said there is no point in discussing this issue anymore in the Beijing-proposed negotiating table because President Marcos already stood firm last Aug. 9 that he was not aware of any arrangement to remove BRP Sierra Madre from our territory and, more importantly, that if there was one, he would—in his words—“rescind that agreement now.”
Villafuerte recalled that, “China has repeatedly made a mockery of its diplomatic talks and avowed commitments with the Philippines on pursuing a peaceful settlement of the conflict, as such formal engagements this year have only become a prelude to more, instead of less, Chinese intrusions into our territorial waters.”
“The asymmetry between Beijing’s rhetoric and action on this thorny territorial issue is as clear as day,” he said in pointing out that the trio of Manila-Beijing diplomatic engagements this year had been followed by even more intense bullying tactics by China in the WPS,” he said.
The Aug. 5 attack had been separately denounced by the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the European Union, United Kingdom (UK), France and New Zealand, among others, as they reaffirmed their support for UNCLOS and the 2016 PCA arbitral award.
