AFP delivers Noche Buena packs to Ayungin troops

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Navy delivered Christmas Noche Buena packages last week to soldiers on the BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal unmolested by the Chinese, who watched from a distance on their coast guard and naval vessels.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) also said rotation and resupply (RORE) missions to eight other islands occupied by Filipinos were carried out uninterrupted by the Chinese between Dec. 3 and 14.

“The highlight of the RORE was the delivery of Noche Buena packages for our troops. Their morale was high,” Philippine Navy spokesman for the WPS issue, Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, said yesterday.

“What I would like to tell our countrymen is, we performed our mandate without any fanfare, on land, sea and air. This, we offer to the nation,” he said.

During the RORE mission to the Sierra Madre led by the Western Command (WESCOM), two ships of the China Coast Guard and the People’s Liberation Army Navy could be seen watching from afar, according to Trinidad.

But he stressed the Chinese vessels made “no illegal or coercive actions.” He did not name the Philippine Navy vessels used in the RORE missions.

“We perform our mandate, we conduct our ROREs. Any developments, the AFP is prepared to respond to. It was conducted without any untoward incident this time,” he told reporters at a press briefing.

Trinidad said he’d rather not speculate on why the CCG and the PLAN vessels did not take any action against Filipinos in the RORE mission, as “there may be other instruments of government at work, maybe other government agencies.”

“But so far, as the Department of National Defense is concerned, the AFP is concerned, we’ll keep performing our mandate of doing the RORE missions,” he said.

On reports that some Chinese vessels issued radio challenges to Filipino fishermen, Trinidad said such challenges or radio broadcasts are normal occurrences.

“But also on our side, we keep performing our mandate. We keep challenging all ships, not only PLA Navy or Chinese coast guard. On a monthly basis, we monitor more than 12,000 ships. We issue the proper challenges, some of them reply,” he said.

“We would like to inform all our fishermen, our fisherfolk, our countrymen to just do your normal day-to-day activities of fishing because the sea is ours and we should benefit from it,” Trinidad said.

“The illegal actions being done to us are not on a daily basis. These are isolated usually on Bajo de Masinloc (Panatag Shoal). Sometimes, we would monitor other areas. But overall, it is peaceful. It’s ours, we have unimpeded access all over the expanse of the West Philippine Sea,” he said.

Trinidad said President Marcos’ instruction that the Philippines should not make any move to escalate tensions is clear and needs no elaboration.

“All our actions should be within the bounds of international law, should be non-escalatory, should support the 2016 Arbitral Tribunal ruling. The AFP has never left the area. We are there, it’s our mandate to maintain our territorial integrity,” he said.

“Different patrol plans on sea and air are being conducted by Northern Luzon Command and Western Command. Other government agencies are also in the maritime domain performing their respective functions,” he stressed.

“There are different instruments of national power at work in the maritime domain, each with its own mandate. The mandate of the Philippine Navy, we have exceeded our targets for this year. Not only the Navy but also the Air Force through Western Command and Northern Luzon Command. We have performed more than 500 total maritime surveillance, maritime sovereignty patrols, air surveillance flights,” he said. — Jose Rodel Clapano