Marcos to hold command conference over Ayungin Shoal incident
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said a command conference will be called after the change of command ceremony of the Philippine Army in Malacanang to discuss the latest incident where Chinese Coast Guard blocked a Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting boats on a resupply mission to Ayungin Shoal.
''We will hold a command conference on how we will respond but as you can imagine, I don't want to discuss the operational aspects,'' said Marcos in an ambush interview on Monday.
''I glad no one was hurt but the resupply (mission) fell short,'' he added.
As this developed, the Chinese Coast Guard said in a statement Monday that it is calling on the Philippines to withdraw the grounded ship at Ayungin Shoal.
''China urges the Philippines to tow away the "grounded" warship from the Ren'ai Reef (Ayungin Shoal) and restore the Ren'ai Reef to its original state. At the same time, from the perspective of humanitarianism, temporary special arrangements have been made for the delivery of food and other necessary living materials to the Philippine warships "grounded", the China Coast Guard said.
Marcos said the Philippines will '' continue to assert our sovereignty. We continue to assert our territorial rights despite of all of these challenges and consistent with the international law with UNCLOS, especially.''
''But we still have to keep communicating with the Chinese government because we really need to come a conclusion,'' he said.
Marcos said there is ''a grey area'' as while the Philippines claims its area under the Arbitral Tribunal decision, China insists this is theirs by historical right.'' DMS
