Gov’t belittles WPS clash; ‘no attack’
These are legitimate and ordinary operations that we do, and right now we don’t see any reason to be requesting any foreign actors to support our ordinary and routine resupply missions
Daily TribuneThese are legitimate and ordinary operations that we do, and right now we don’t see any reason to be requesting any foreign actors to support our ordinary and routine resupply missions
The showdown at the shoal between China Coast Guard (CCG) personnel swinging machetes and knives and bare-handed Philippine Navy special forces is not enough to halt the resupply missions.
And security officials refused to call it an armed attack by China.
The troops stationed on the grounded BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal are assured of getting their provisions even without assistance from foreign allies.
National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) spokesperson, Commodore Jay Tarriela, said the country’s uniformed services are “capable of conducting and completing” the resupply operations within the exclusive economic zone in the West Philippine Sea.
“These are legitimate and ordinary operations that we do, and right now we don’t see any reason to be requesting any foreign actors to support our ordinary and routine resupply missions,” Tarriela told reporters in a Saturday news forum in Quezon City.
Misunderstanding or accident
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, in a press conference on Friday afternoon, said the recent confrontation was “probably a misunderstanding or an accident,” hence, the government is “not considering” invoking the country’s 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States.
In the latest Ayungin incident, Chinese coast guardsmen brandished knives and an axe, and pointed sticks at the Philippine Navy sailors.
CCG vessels also repeatedly rammed the Navy’s rubber boats to prevent the Filipino crew from delivering food supplies, firearms, and other necessities to the troops stationed on the Sierra Madre.
Bersamin said the incident “was probably a misunderstanding or an accident. We are not yet ready to consider this an armed attack.”
“We saw bolos and an axe, nothing beyond that,” he added.
Tarriela said “there is no reason to interpret” the recent confrontation as an armed attack.
“So there was no intention to use an axe or knife to stab our soldiers. It was explained that the reason one of our soldiers was injured was because of a high-speed ramming incident between our and the CCG boats,” he said.
China’s objective was to impede the government’s fresh supplies from reaching the Sierra Madre.
“That’s simply how we should look at the last incident. This was not an armed attack or a provocation for us to say that China is escalating tensions. This is a case of blocking movements,” he said.
“So to our countrymen, we should not interpret this as something that will result in a war,” Tarriela added.
He stressed that no country had “an intention to have a large-scale armed aggression in this incident.”
Not act of war
Maritime law expert, Professor Jay Batongbacal of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said it is premature for the Philippines to declare China’s latest aggression an act of war that warrants a collective self-defense.
“Not every unlawful act of a state is necessarily what we call an act of war. In international law, there are rules and jurisprudence on this issue, particularly in International Humanitarian Law and Laws of Armed Conflict,” he said.
Batongbacal explained that “incidents such as geographically isolated skirmishes are not enough to be considered an armed attack that warrants an engagement in self-defense.”
“It is not easy for the Philippines to just simply react to every incident as if it is an act of war and warrants serious hostilities. Kalma lang, keri lang (Stay calm, carry on),” he said.
Batongbacal tried to explain Bersamin’s “accident and misunderstanding” remark.
“I think the intention here is to essentially treat that incident as being on the same level as a misunderstanding or an accident at this point,” he said.
“And that would be useful to give space for a more deliberate effort to seek a diplomatic and peaceful solution so that the reaction will not be impulsive, precipitate or premature, so that it is giving space for that.”
Batongbacal stressed that the Philippines, as a peaceful country, won’t resort to war as an instrument of national policy.
“We will always only be able to use it in self-defense. So that, I think, is why it was mentioned that it was being treated essentially on the same level as that rather than an initiation of an aggressive armed conflict by China,” he said.
‘Punto de vista’
Tarriela said Bersamin should have taken more time to explain further what he meant by his statements on Friday.
“The Philippines intends to resupply our troops while China intends to block our resupply mission,” he said.
Tarriela explained that the “punto de vista” (point of view) of saying “it was an accident” related to the injury incurred by the Navy crewman who lost a thumb in the ramming incident.
