By Neil Jerome Morales and Enrico Dela Cruz
MANILA (Portal) – The Philippines will vigorously defend its territory and the rights of its fishermen and does not expect trouble, its president said on Friday, as a dispute with China simmers over access to a strategic seabed in the South China Sea.
The Philippine Coast Guard said this week it had cut through a 300-meter (980-foot) floating barrier installed by China that blocked access to the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal, an area Beijing has controlled for more than a decade.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the Philippines would protect its fishing rights in its exclusive economic zone in his first remarks on the latest outbreak.
“What we will do is continue to defend the Philippines, the maritime territory of the Philippines and the right of our fishermen to catch fish in areas where they have been doing so for hundreds of years,” Marcos told reporters.
The Chinese Coast Guard has disputed the Philippine version of events, while the United States has thrown its support behind ally Manila. A senior defense official called their move a “brave step” and underscored their treaty obligations to defend their former colony.
Marcos added: “A lot of these are operational issues that I really can’t talk about.”
“But in terms of removing the barrier, I don’t know what else we could do.”
Relations between the Philippines and China have deteriorated recently, due in large part to Marcos’ overtures to deepen defense ties with Washington, including offering expanded access to his troops, ostensibly for training and humanitarian purposes.
“The president is truly serious about his commitment that we will not cede an inch of our territory to any foreign power,” Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said at a news conference.
China, which claims Scarborough Shoal is its territory, has reprimanded the United States for what it called provocations in the region.
Since the cutting of the floating barrier, the Philippines has observed less Chinese presence in the shoal, Tarriela said.
An inspection flight on Thursday spotted three Chinese coast guard ships and one maritime militia ship, compared to seven Chinese ships last week, Tarriela said.
There were two Filipino vessels fishing in the shallows, but it remained difficult to enter the lagoon, he added.
(Reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz and Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin Petty and Mark Potter)