Foreign ships harass mayor of disputed isle
By Redempto Anda
The mayor of Kalayaan town in Palawan was harassed by two unidentified vessels while traveling with around 200 others by sea toward midnight on Thursday.
The mayor of Kalayaan town in Palawan was harassed by two unidentified vessels while traveling with around 200 others by sea toward midnight on Thursday.
The Philippines has asserted the country’s exclusive right to develop those parts of the disputed Spratlys archipelago within its exclusive economic zone in the wake of China’s objections to the government’s reported plan to rehabilitate and build new infrastructures on Pag-asa island in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
Their cargo holds stuffed with live corals and marine turtles, the army of Chinese fishers that swooped down on the reefs around Pag-asa Island early this week began heading back to mainland China on Saturday, according to municipal and defense officials.
Employees of the municipal government on Pag-asa reported on Friday that Chinese fishermen continued collecting corals from the edge of islands on the fringe of reefs 3 kilometers from Pag-asa.
Under the protective watch of warships, Chinese fishing vessels anchored off the Philippine-occupied Pag-asa Island in the disputed Spratly archipelago in the West Philippine Sea operated at will on Thursday, catching fish but mainly collecting corals in large quantities.
With China aggressively asserting its claims in the West Philippine Sea, a lawmaker suggested on Thursday that it might be time for the Philippines to ask the United Nations for a peacekeeping force to prevent armed clashes between the two countries in the disputed waters.
China’s newest city is a remote island in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) barely large enough to host a single airstrip. It has a post office, bank, supermarket and a hospital, but little else. Fresh water comes by freighter on a 13-hour journey from China’s southernmost province.
A fleet of 20 Chinese fishing vessels believed to be escorted by at least two naval frigates of the People’s Liberation Army has been deployed around Pag-asa Island in a move likely to escalate tensions over disputed territories in the Spratly archipelago between the Philippines and China.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) party-list group will use the second tranche of its Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), more popularly referred to as pork barrel, this year to construct a two-story six-classroom elementary school building on Pag-asa, the largest island in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) occupied by the Philippines.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Wednesday said that China should not make an issue out of the putting up of a school on Pag-asa Island in the West Philippine Sea, saying the Philippines has been occupying the area for a long time.
A spokesperson of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Sunday weighed in on talk about the possibility of developing a disputed island in the Spratlys into a tourism destination, saying “what is ours is ours.”
A leftist fisherfolk alliance has urged Congress to investigate an administration plan to build a pier on a disputed island in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
