Read his lips.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Thursday, April 1, said the Philippines’ ownership of maritime features in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) was “ours” even China built massive structures in the area.
In a Twitter post, Locsin asserted the island part of the WPS where there are massive China-built structures, is within the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
“Within our EEZ so it’s ours. The durability and vintage of the structures don’t matter. Ours,” he said.
The country’s top diplomat was responding to a question of a Twitter user who asked about China’s massive structures being built in the West Philippines Sea.
On Wednesday, the Philippine military conducted an aerial patrol in the area, but it was told to “leave immediately and keep out” because it was a Chinese reef.
Locsin has filed a diplomatic protest against China over the presence of the 220 Chinese vessels near the Julian Felipe Reef (Whitsun Reef) in the West Philippine Sea.
There were still 44 Chinese maritime militia vessels moored in the maritime area as of Tuesday, March 30.
EMBED: https://mb.com.ph/2021/03/31/exclusive-document-photos-show-chinese-vessels-now-dispersed-in-other-features-in-west-ph-sea/
China has been increasing its deployment of sea vessels to the contested region since the administrations of President Benigno Aquino III. This prompted then Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario to bring the matter before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in The Hague.
The Philippines won the case under the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and has since then used this landmark legal victory to call on China to respect maritime boundaries.
“Just laughed at the adventures. All that interesting history of losses/gains was made irrelevant by the arbitral award we won at the Hague all by ourselves with all countries against us including the West,” Locsin said in another tweet.