MANILA – The Philippines has formally filed a diplomatic protest in light of China air force’ s dangerous actions in Scarborough Shoal over the weekend.
Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesperson Teresita Daza said on Tuesday that the diplomatic protest was lodged on Monday afternoon but she opted not to give further details about it.
Daza, however, said the Philippines “remains committed to diplomacy and peaceful means of resolving disputes” and that the country “adopts a de-escalatory approach to tensions in the WPS.”
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Saturday said that two People’s Liberation Army – Air Force (PLAAF) executed dangerous maneuvers and dropped flares in the path of an NC-212i PAF propeller aircraft conducting a routine maritime patrol over Scarborough Shoal around 9 a.m. on Thursday, August 8.
Even if no Philippine Air Force (PAF) personnel were harmed in the incident, the AFP stressed that it
“endangered the lives of our personnel undertaking maritime security operations recently within Philippine maritime zones.”
PLA’s Southern Theater Command, meanwhile, responded that the Philippine aircraft, “despite repeated warnings from China, insisted on illegally intruding into the airspace of Huangyan Island,” disrupting training activities.
According to the command, China’s naval and air forces carried out identification, tracking, warning, and expulsion in accordance with the law.
“The on-site operation was professional, abided by norms, legitimate, and legal,” said the PLA, which urged the Philippines to stop what it called infringement and provocation.
Scarborough Shoal is located 124 nautical miles off Masinloc, Zambales, and is considered within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, based on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
China claims almost all of the South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual shipborne commerce, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei.
In 2016, an international arbitration tribunal in Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines over China’s claims in the South China Sea, saying that it had “no legal basis”. China refuses to recognize the decision./PN
