Duterte urged to protest China plan

Senators have urged President Duterte to file a strong protest against China’s plan to build an environmental monitoring station on Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal and its incursions into Benham Rise.

Sen. JV Ejercito called for diplomatic action after Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio proposed five options that Mr. Duterte could take instead of saying publicly that he could not stop China’s plan to build a station on Panatag Shoal.

The first of those five options was to file a strong protest, like what Vietnam did after China sent a cruise ship to the Paracels, a group of islands in the South China Sea whose ownership is disputed by Hanoi and Beijing.

“It’s our sworn duty to protect our territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Ejercito said in a tweet on Monday night.

The Philippines cannot match China’s military might, but “we can exhaust all other diplomatic means to fight for our territory,” he said.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II told reporters on Tuesday that the government was preparing a “fairly strong case” against China, but did not provide details.

Citing Mr. Duterte’s public statements about Panatag Shoal and Benham Rise, Sen. Bam Aquino on Tuesday asked Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, the Senate foreign relations committee chair, to make good his promise to hold hearings on the resolution that he filed last year for an inquiry into the foreign policy direction of the country.

Aquino also called on the government to clarify Mr. Duterte’s agreement with China involving Benham Rise.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV accused Mr. Duterte of dereliction of duty and culpable violation of the Constitution over his Panatag Shoal and Benham Rise remarks, and said the Magdalo party-list group would add these charges to the accusations in the impeachment complaint it filed against the President in the House of Representatives last week.

Carpio said in a statement on Monday that Mr. Duterte could also send the Philippine Navy to patrol Panatag Shoal. If China attacks the Philippine Navy vessels, then the Philippines could invoke its Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the United States, which covers armed attacks on Philippine vessels operating in the South China Sea.

Mr. Duterte, Carpio said, could also ask the United States to declare that Panatag Shoal is part of Philippine territory for the purposes of the MDT, like what Japan did in its dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The United States declared the Senkakus part of Japanese territory, committing itself to fight for Japan in a conflict with China over the uninhabited islands. —WITH A REPORT FROM MARLON RAMOS