Philippines defending territory, not seeking trouble in South China Sea: President Marcos

MANILA - The Philippines will put up a strong defence of its territory and the rights of its fishermen, and is not looking for trouble, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Friday, as a row simmers with China over access to a strategic South China Sea shoal.

The Philippine Coast Guard this week said it

had cut a 300m floating barrier

installed by China that blocked access to the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal, an area Beijing has controlled for over a decade.

Mr Marcos, in his first remarks over the latest flare-up, said the Philippines was upholding its rights to fish in its exclusive economic zone.

“What we will do is to continue defending the Philippines, the maritime territory of the Philippines, the rights of our fishermen to catch fish in areas where they... (have been) doing for hundreds of years already,” he told reporters.

“That’s why I don’t understand why this happened,” he said, referring to an ongoing spat with China over access to the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

The China Coast Guard has disputed the Philippine version of the events, while the United States has weighed in behind ally Manila, with a senior US defence official calling its move a “bold step” and underlining Washington’s treaty obligations to defend its former colony.

Mr Marcos added: “Many of these are operational issues and that I really cannot talk about. But in terms of taking down the barrier, I don’t see what else we could do.”

Ties between the Philippines and China have deteriorated of late, in large part due to overtures from Mr Marcos to deepen defence ties with Washington, including offering expanded access to its troops, ostensibly for training and humanitarian purposes.

China, which says the Scarborough Shoal is its territory, has chided the US for what it calls provocations in the region.

The Philippine Coast Guard vowed on Friday to “do whatever it takes” to remove any more floating barriers installed by China at the disputed reef.

“In the next coming months, if ever that barrier will once again be in place, the Philippine Coast Guard will do whatever it takes for us to remove the barrier,” the coast guard’s spokesman for the West Philippine Sea, Commodore Jay Tarriela, told reporters as he sat next to the anchor seized during the mission. REUTERS, AFP