Navy: Chinese militia vessels shouldn’t be within Philippines EEZ

MANILA, Philippines — Thirty Chinese maritime militia vessels have been spotted in the vicinity of Rozul Reef off Palawan, while Vietnam has reportedly scaled up its dredging activities in the Kalayaan Island Group, the Philippine Navy said yesterday.

In an interview on dzBB, Philippine Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad said the number of Chinese maritime militia or People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy vessels spotted keep changing and it is not surprising.

“We don’t know what they’re planning to do, but in the first place they should not even be there,” Trinidad said, referring to the Chinese.

“They shouldn’t be there. They are China’s agents of aggression, and they’re entering our exclusive economic zone. We should really be focused on this – it’s incursion,” he said.

He said Chinese maritime militia vessels, coast guard and PLA ships spotted around nine features in the West Philippine Sea vary in number.

According to Trinidad, the Philippine Navy is also monitoring Vietnam’s increasing dredging and landfill work in the South China Sea.

US researchers said on Friday that Vietnam is speeding up South China Sea building pace, creating almost as much new land as in the previous two years combined, setting the stage for a record year of island-building.

“We’re closely monitoring it but I believe the more appropriate agency to give the details of that would be DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs). The DFA is acting on it,” he added.

Meanwhile, a member of the House committee on national defense and security said yesterday areas in the country’s territorial waters being subjected to intrusions by China should be marked as such in maps.

Bukidnon Rep. Jonathan Keith Flores said the word West Philippine Sea should also be used to identify this water territory in radio challenges and notices to mariners and aircraft navigators and pilots, among other communications.

“We need new maps showing the West Philippine Sea. The Google Maps, navigational maps used by all local and international ships and aircraft and maps in Philippine textbooks should all show where the West Philippine Sea is. Encyclopedias should also show where the West Philippine Sea is,” he said.

Flores added the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority’s Philippine administrative map should be made widely available locally and overseas.

“Notably, nowhere on Google Maps can you find the name ‘West Philippine Sea,’ but the name ‘South China Sea’ is there, smack in the middle of Southeast Asia. The Philippine Sea is there but the Philippine Rise is not,” he maintained. — Sheila Crisostomo