Pinoys in US to hold protest rally vs China at UN office

MANILA, Philippines - A group of Filipino-Americans based in the United States is staging a protest rally against China’s continuing incursion in the West Philippine Sea in front of the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York next month.

The planned protest action is aimed at raising international and local awareness on China's “creeping” invasion in Philippine territorial waters, the latest of which is Beijing’s deployment of its maritime vessels in Ayungin shoal.

Loida Nicolas Lewis, chairperson of the US Pinoys for Good Governance, said the group will be holding the protest action on the 24th of July.

Ayungin Shoal is located just 105 nautical miles from mainland Palawan and is within the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Lewis pointed out.

Since last month, military territorial monitoring showed that Chinese frigates and surveillance vessels were alternately seen just within the vicinity of Ayungin Shoal, where Filipino troops are stationed on a grounded Philippine Navy logistics and landing tank ship, BRP Sierra Madre.

“China seized the Philippines’ Mischief Reef in 1994, then our Scarborough Shoal (Panatag) last year. This year, China is set to invade and occupy Ayungin Shoal. This is unacceptable!” Lewis said.

Lewis also said that they are holding the protest in front of the UN headquarters on July 24 to coincide with Beijing’s establishment of Sansha City Prefecture based at Woody Island in the Paracels.

The newly-established prefecture which is under protest from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has been mandated by China to administer two million square kilometers of the West Philippine Sea to include the Philippines’ territorial waters and the regime of islands and reefs in the Spratlys archipelago.