A board member of Palawan's second district said three Filipinos who were reported arrested in China for alleged espionage were part of a group on a scholarship by the provincial government in 2017 and 2018.

Ryan Dagsa Maminta told StoryCon insisted that the three Filipinos arrested in China are not spies.

"Two of them were sent by the provincial government of Palawan to Hainan Normal University in 2018 because of the memorandum of agreement and then sisterhood agreement with the Hainan province that Palawaneos would have an all-expense paid scholarship in Hainan," Maminta said.

Maminta said that the three students have graduated from the program, which has sent around 50 students to study in Hainan. He said they returned to Hainan to look for work opportunities.

According to Maminta, the three Filipinos arrested were part of the first and second batch of students sent by the provincial government of Palawan to Hainan.

"Apparently, they had job opportunities that they received from the university and even outside of the university of the province," Maminta added.

The families of the three Filipinos were not informed of their arrest until the news report released by Global Times on Thursday, according to Mamita.

"The report said that the three confessed to espionage, but that's doubtful because these three have no experience, no skill, no training to do that," Mamita explained.

Maminta said that one of the Filipinos arrested was working as an assistant to a professor in Hainan and also worked in a pharmaceutical company after multiple returns to Hainan, while the other two were first-time returnees to Hainan. Yzabela Velez-White/DMS