MANILA, Philippines — The Marcos administration will continue to file diplomatic protests against foreign aggressions in Philippine waters, incoming National Security Adviser (NSA) and retired political science professor Clarita Carlos said.
“We will continue to file diplomatic protests. Never mind that we are filing 10,000 of them because if we don’t that means we acquiesce to the situation on the ground,” Carlos said during Friday’s Laging Handa briefing when asked if she would support the practice of filing diplomatic protests against Chinese aggressions in the West Philippine Sea, as what his predecessors had done.
Carlos, however, stressed the need to continue engaging with China and other claimants in bilateral and multilateral discussions.
“We will continue to do bilateral and multilateral talks with China and other powers because it’s not only China who is laying claim to the contested South and East China Sea,” she further said. “Let’s just continue to talk because the alternative is something unacceptable to all of us.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Thursday announced filing a new diplomatic protest over the return of more than 100 Chinese vessels “illegally operating in the waters in and around” Julian Felipe Reef.
These vessels were seen in the area on April 4, 2022, according to the DFA.
In April 2021, the DFA summoned China’s top envoy in Manila and expressed “utmost displeasure” over the “illegal lingering presence” of Chinese vessels in the same reef.
China has yet to comment on DFA’s fresh protest but had earlier maintained that the reef is part of Nansha Qundao, one of two political districts in the South China Sea established by the Chinese government.
READ: ‘Stop wanton hype-up:’ China says ‘no plan’ to keep ‘permanent presence’ in WPS reef
The DFA had previously rejected this assertion, saying the area is within the Kalayaan Island Group and lies in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
The DFA has so far filed over 300 diplomatic protests against China since the beginning of the Duterte administration in 2016.
Manila and Beijing have been locked in a long-standing maritime dispute.
In 2016, the Philippine scored a victory at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague in the Netherlands after it ruled as invalid China’s sweeping claim of nearly the entire South China Sea, including parts of the West Philippine Sea.
Beijing has repeatedly refused to recognize the ruling.
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