Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said the nation should be prepared for any eventuality due to heightened tension in the Indo-Pacific region regarding sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, as well as security issues around neighboring Taiwan.
The Philippines has long clashed with China over the South China Sea, but the nation’s proximity to Taiwan also puts it in China’s area of interest, Marcos told troops at a military camp in Isabela Province in the northern Cagayan region facing Taiwan — home to more than 150,000 Filipinos.
“The external threat now has become more pronounced, has become more worrisome, and that is why we have to prepare,” Marcos told the troops on Monday in a speech shared by Malacanang Palace yesterday.
Photo: AP
Last year, Marcos gave US forces access to almost double the number of military bases at a time of concern over increased Chinese activity in the South China Sea and tension over Taiwan.
Beijing said the expanded US access was “stoking the fire.”
China’s military conducted two days of war games around Taiwan last month, including drills testing its ability to “seize power” and control key areas.
“Now you have two missions, whereas before it was only internal security,” Marcos told the troops, stressing the need to strengthen external defense capabilities.
Marcos said the Philippines was not trying to redraw lines of sovereign territory in the South China Sea, including its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and that it was committed to defend itself while engaging in diplomacy.
Tension with China has escalated in the past year over frequent maritime run-ins within the Philippines’ EEZ in the South China Sea.
China has “no business” being in the Philippines’ EEZ, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in a statement.
“The main message is: The 10 dash line is the provocation. And everything flows from that,” Teodoro said, referring to a U-shaped line on Chinese maps.
The line, which China said is based on its historic maps, loops as far as 1,500km south of its Hainan island and cuts into the EEZs of the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Yesterday, a day before the Philippines’ Independence Day, more than 100 protesters gathered outside China’s consular office in Manila demanding China leave the Philippines’ EEZ.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS