Philippines will not allow Chinese Coast Guard to arrest Filipino fishermen in WPS
The Philippine government will not allow the Chinese Coast Guard to arrest Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea when its regulation goes into effect starting June 15, a Philippine Navy official said Wednesday.
"Not only the Philippine Navy but the entire government, the entire nation will not allow this based on the pronouncement of our commander-in-chief that this is totally unacceptable," Philippine Navy spokesman for West Philippine Sea (WPS) Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad said.
"Rest assured that the Philippine Navy supports the call of the commander-in-chief. This is unacceptable, it is not in accordance with international law. It has no basis. It has already been nullified by the arbitral tribunal eight years ago in 2016," he added.
Trinidad also assured the Filipino fishermen that the military has "a range of options available" to respond in case China Coast Guard will implement its new regulation to detain foreigners who they claim to illegally enter their borders starting June 15.
"When we say the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will protect, there are many ways how to do that. Number one it is not purely a military action, it will take, it will entail a whole of government, whole of nation approach to ensure that every Filipino is protected, not only on land, but more importantly for this particular case, in the maritime domain," he said.
"As we have been always emphasizing, the AFP lives on plans, so we have a lot of plans. If the situation arises based on the plan then we have, we know what to do. So rest assured that we have a lot of contingency plans, not only for this particular incident but for a range of incidents that may happen," he added.
Trinidad also reiterated that the new regulation of China will not deter the Philippine military from performing its mandate to protect the Filipinos and secure the sovereignty of the country. DMS
