📷 Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro | Philippine News Agency
The Philippines has changed its tune this week after the newly formed National Maritime Council (NMC) said that China’s actions against a resupply mission to Ayungin Shoal on June 17 were a “misunderstanding” and that future missions should be “announced.”
In a Palace Briefing on Monday, June 24, Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro countered Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin’s earlier remarks and said that China’s actions in the West Philippine Sea are “deliberate” and that it was neither a misunderstanding nor an accident.
“We see the latest incident in Ayungin not as a misunderstanding or an accident. It is a deliberate act of the Chinese officialdom to prevent us from completing our mission,” Teodoro said in a press briefing in Malacañang.
“After our visit to our troops in Palawan yesterday, where the President personally talked to the troops involved in the RORE, we have now come to a conclusion that it was not a misunderstanding or an accident… We are not downplaying the incident. It was an aggressive and illegal use of force,” he added.
The China Coast Guard (CCG) harrassed the Philippine troops who were on a rotation and resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre, a rusty warship that is used as a military outpost in Ayungin Shoal last June 17.
In that incident, the CCG pulled one of the Philippine ships, destroyed equipment on board, and took arms that had been taken apart. A soldier lost his right thumb after China kept hitting the Philippines’ rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs).
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) released videos on June 19 that showed CCG members harassing Filipino troops who were docked next to the BRP Sierra Madre with knives, tear gas, and sirens. For days, no one knew what happened in that fight.
AFP called it a brutal attack, and Jay Tarriela, a spokesman for the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) in the West Philippine Sea, said what the CCG did was “barbaric” and “inhumane.”
NMC chairperson and Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, at a news conference on Friday, June 21, said that the event was “probably a misunderstanding or an accident.”
At the same press conference, Bersamin and Presidential Adviser for Maritime Affairs Andres Centino mentioned the possibility of making public the schedule of the regular resupply trips to the shoal.
However, Teodoro said that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. thrown out this plan.
Asked about what changed between the Friday announcement and the Monday press conference, Teodoro told reporters that Bersamin’s assertion was based on the “preliminary assessment at that time.”
However, Teodoro said Marcos’ conclusion that China deliberately made the attack “firmed up” after the Chief Executive’s trip to Palawan over the weekend.
Tensions have escalated between China and the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea, which is part of the South China Sea and includes the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) over the past year.
China claims most of the South China Sea as its own, even parts that are well inside the EEZ of the Philippines, like Ayungin Shoal.
Beijin g has warned Manila about the “consequences” of its activities in the West Philippine Sea, but Marcos has said he will not give in.
China also won’t accept an arbitration decision from 2016 that said its claim was wrong and supported Philippines’ EEZ. (TCSP)
