The Philippines is to upgrade outposts in waters off its coast and acquire more ships, its military chief said yesterday, as the nation seeks to push back against China’s growing assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea.
Manila and Beijing have a long history of maritime territorial disputes in the waterway, but relations have sharply deteriorated over a series of incidents involving vessels from both nations.
Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Romeo Brawner said the nation would develop “the islands and other features” it held.
Photo: Reuters
The Philippines has outposts on nine reefs and islands in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) in the South China Sea.
Brawner said Thitu Island (Jhongye Island, 中業島) would be among those where facilities would be improved with the installation of desalination machines and communications equipment.
“We are just trying to make it more liveable, more habitable for our soldiers because they really have poor living conditions,” he told reporters.
However, the plan does not include “fortifying the Sierra Madre,” Brawner said, referring to a crumbling World War II-vintage ship grounded on Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) by the Philippine Navy in 1999 to assert the nation’s territorial claims.
The Philippines would also acquire “more ships, more aircraft, radars,” Brawner said, as part of a modest modernization program that began more than a decade ago.
Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea and has ignored an international tribunal ruling that its assertions have no legal basis. China this month held military drills in the South China Sea as the US and the Philippines conducted their own joint exercises in the same waters.
The Philippine Congress has earmarked 800 million pesos (US$14.3 million) for the transportation department to build a port facility on Nanshan Island (馬歡島) where boats, including those for fishing, could seek shelter.
Another 1.5 billion pesos has been allocated for the expansion of the airstrip on Thitu Island, Philippine House of Representatives Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Luis Campos said on Sunday.
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