THE resupply missions to troops on Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal will remain purely Philippine operations, the National Security Council (NSC) said Sunday after Washington vowed to “do what is necessary” to support them.
The shoal, which hosts a tiny Philippine garrison stationed on a deliberately beached old warship, has been a focus of escalating confrontations between Chinese and Philippine ships in recent months as Beijing steps up efforts to push its claims to the entire South China Sea.
A Filipino sailor lost a thumb on the latest June 17 clash when Chinese coast guard members wielding knives, sticks and an axe foiled a Philippine Navy attempt to resupply its troops.
“As far as the RORE (rotation and resupply mission) is concerned, we’re keeping it as a purely Philippine operation utilizing Philippine ships, personnel and leadership,” NSC spokesman Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya said.
“That may change depending on the guidance from top management but that’s the direction or policy at present.”
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Malaya’s remarks came after White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States “will do what is necessary” to ensure the Philippines can continue to resupply its troops on the contested atoll.
“We will continue to support the Philippines and stand behind them as they take steps to be able to ensure that,” Sullivan said during the Aspen Security Forum conference in Colorado.
Malaya said the NSC appreciated the US offer and the Philippines would continue consultations as treaty allies.
Manila has a mutual defense pact with the United States which requires both parties to come to the other’s defense in case of an “armed attack” against vessels, aircraft, military and coast guard anywhere in the Pacific theater, which Washington says includes the South China Sea.
Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, brushing aside competing claims from several Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines and an international ruling that Beijing’s stance has no legal basis.
Ayungin Shoal lies about 200 kilometers from the western Philippine island of Palawan and more than 1,000 kilometers from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island.
Filipino soldiers stationed on the shoal live on the crumbling BRP Sierra Madre and require frequent resupplies for food, water and other necessities as well as transport for personnel rotations.
China deploys coast guard and other boats to patrol the waters around the shoal and has turned several reefs into artificial militarized islands.
On Sunday, members of the Anti-Imperialist Movement staged a protest at the Quezon City Memorial Circle in Diliman to voice their opposition to the signing of a military intelligence-sharing agreement between the Philippines and the United States on July 30 in Manila.
The intel-sharing agreement will be signed during the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue between Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and their US counterparts US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue followed the conclusion of negotiations last month on Manila’s General Security of Military Information Agreement with Washington.
Rodolfo Javellana Jr., the group’s co-convener, described the decision of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to allow the country to enter into an intel-sharing pact with the US as “treason.”
“Isn’t this turning away from his oath after he was elected President of the Philippines?” he said. “”We don’t want anything but a peaceful Philippines, a prosperous Philippines.”
Javellana said what the Philippines is doing by advancing its military relations with the US was advancing the geopolitical interest of Washington in the region and offering Manila as an extension of America’s military network.
“The country’s territorial dispute with China over parts of the South China Sea should not involve the opportunistic meddling of a former colonizer whose real motive is to preserve and expand its imperialist hegemony in the region,” he said.
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