Philippines must prepare as external threats grow: Marcos

MANILA - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said the country should be prepared for any eventuality due to heightened tension in the Indo-Pacific region regarding sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, as well as security issues around neighbouring Taiwan.

The Philippines has long clashed with China over the South China Sea.

But the country’s proximity to Taiwan puts it in China’s area of interest, he told troops at a military camp in Isabela province in northern Cagayan region, which faces Taiwan.

China views self-governing Taiwan as an inalienable part of its territory and strongly opposes any moves towards Taiwanese independence.

Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims.

The island is also home to more than 150,000 Filipinos.

“The external threat now has become more pronounced, has become more worrisome, and that is why we have to prepare,” Mr Marcos told the troops on June 10, in a speech shared by the presidential palace on June 11.

In 2023, he gave US forces access to

almost double the number of military bases

at a time of concern over increased Chinese activity in the South China Sea and tension over Taiwan.

China said the expanded access to the United States was “stoking the fire”.

China’s military conducted two days of war games around Taiwan in May, including drills testing its ability to “seize power” and control key areas.

“Now you have two missions, whereas before it was only internal security,” Mr Marcos told the troops, stressing the need to strengthen external defence capabilities.

The Philippines was not trying to redraw lines of sovereign territory including its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and the country was committed to defending itself while engaging in diplomacy, he said.

Tension with China has escalated in the past year over frequent maritime run-ins within the Philippines’ EEZ in the South China Sea, a conduit for more than US$3 trillion (S$4 trillion) in annual ship commerce.

China has “no business” being in the Philippines’ EEZ, Secretary of National Defence Gilberto Teodoro said in a statement.

“The main message is: The 10-dash line is the provocation. And everything flows from that,” he said, referring to a U-shaped line on Chinese maps.

The line, which China said is based on its historic maps, loops as far as 1,500km south of its Hainan island and cuts into the EEZs of the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague

invalidated China’s claims

in 2016, a decision Beijing has rejected.

On June 11, a day before the Philippines’ Independence Day, more than 100 protesters gathered outside China’s consular office in Manila demanding that China leave the Philippines’ EEZ. REUTERS