Along the northwestern coast of Luzon, poor children with claw hammers clamber aboard an abandoned fishing vessel to pry loose and steal rusty nails from its deck. It’s become a familiar sight in villages where some fishermen have been forced to give up their livelihoods since China took control of their fishing haven last year.
Defense Chief Voltaire Gazmin on Friday said China had maintained its presence in the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal in the West Philippine Sea a year after the standoff between the Philippine Navy and Chinese vessels.
Spanish and Filipino delegates to this year’s Tribuna España-Filipinas forum have agreed to embark on a coordinated “archiving program” of historical documents, especially those involving the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines more than 400 years ago.
The Philippines’ top diplomat on Wednesday said the country would push through with plans to upgrade infrastructure in its claimed parts of the contested Spratly islands in the West Philippine Sea even as it continues to seek a peaceful solution to the dispute.
President Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday said a war with China “over uninhabitable rock formations” was not imminent even as he reiterated the government position that the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) was part of the country’s territorial waters.
The Philippine Coast Guard on Sunday declared it was ready to deploy a patrol vessel to Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal) in the West Philippine Sea as China announced it had conducted the first landing of a fighter jet on its new aircraft carrier.
Malacañang steered clear of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s statement on Thursday that China should become a “maritime power” but said it hoped for warmer relations with Beijing under a new leader.
The joint military exercises between the Philippines and the United States started in this former American naval base on Monday, but a top Philippine military official said the war games had nothing to do with the country’s conflict with China over disputed territories in the West Philippine (South China) Sea.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) starts Monday joint exercises with soldiers of the United States (US) to strengthen their defense partnership amid continuing tensions between Manila and Beijing over the ownership of the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal and other disputed islands in the West Philippine (South China) Sea.
Even as it continues to nurture longstanding ties with China, the Philippines will not back down from asserting its claims in the disputed West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) using international law and without resorting to force.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) clarified Monday that only 80 – not 800 as earlier reported- Marines were sent to Palawan to augment government troops stationed near the disputed islands in the West Philippine Sea.
Seeking to soften the impact of the report of a deadlock, China’s ambassador to the Philippines on Tuesday said that tensions between the two countries had eased after last week’s high-level talks on their territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).
