Foreign power seems 'mapping out' Phl after espionage pattern — military

A military official on Tuesday raised the possibility that a foreign power might have been mapping out in the Philippines following the retrieval of the submersible drone in the country’s waters, use of fake identification documents of foreign nationals, and the alleged espionage activities. 

In a press conference at Camp Aguinaldo, Philippine Navy spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea (WPS) Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad said the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is looking into all efforts as to how extensive the suspected espionage activities operating in the Philippines. 

Trinidad cited the proliferation of fraudulent birth certificates of foreign nationals, including the case of dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo who was arrested for being an alleged Chinese. 

“But if you look at the bigger picture, last month we received the submersible… If we take two steps further backward, a local chief executive with a dubious character and background was uncovered, foreign nationals were arrested with fake government IDs and foreign nationals with birth certificates,” Trinidad lamented.

“If you look at the entire expanse of the country, covering the different instruments of national power and start connecting the dots, there seems now to be a deliberate and calculated move to map out the country by a foreign power. Ito ang binabantayan ng inyong Armed Forces, we are facing this and we are taking appropriate action,” he added.

Trinidad cited that the supposed espionage operation has a pattern. 

“And we only noticed the pattern when we started looking at the bigger picture and started connecting the dots,” he said. 

Trinidad said the military, in coordination  with other law enforcement agencies, is also monitoring such issues which “are not yet a threat to national security but may pose a risk to public safety as well as peace and order.”

“Any information that has derived from our seas would have political, economic, and military applications,” he pointed out. 

He was then asked if China was behind all of this espionage.

“I do not want to speculate on anything. We base our statements on facts,” Trinidad said. 

For her part, AFP spokesperson Colonel Francel Margeth Padilla reechoed what AFP chief General Romeo Brawner Jr. earlier mentioned that a military is delving into the overall espionage efforts by a foreign country against the Philippines. 

“As we take a step back and look at the bigger picture and connect the dots, tinitignan natin yung mga siloed approaches na iba-iba. Ang na-mention din dyan notably ng ating Chief of Staff is the illegal part of the POGO operations,” Padilla said.

“So how everything forms part of a bigger picture, that is what we intend to achieve with all of this intel gathering that we're making,” she added.