Malacañang on Tuesday scored the latest sightings of Chinese warships and a China Coast Guard vessel within the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

Presidential Communications Undersecretary and Press Officer Claire Castro said the latest sightings, which coincided with the ninth anniversary of the Philippines’ legal victory in the 2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea, have heightened government concerns.

“On the ninth anniversary of the arbitral ruling, Foreign Affairs Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro expressed concern over China’s continued refusal to recognize the ruling and its illegal, coercive, and aggressive actions in the region,” Castro said.

The Chinese vessels were observed approximately 69 nautical miles off Cabra Island in Occidental Mindoro — well within the Philippines’ EEZ — on Saturday, 13 July.

Castro echoed Lazaro’s view that reinforcing a rules-based international order and advancing the arbitral ruling rely on consistent and sustained diplomatic engagement.

The 2016 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, invalidated China’s expansive maritime claims and affirmed the Philippines’ sovereign rights within its EEZ in the WPS.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro earlier stressed that asserting Philippine sovereignty was not an act of provocation but a “sacred and fundamental duty of the state.”

To National Security Adviser Eduardo Año, no amount of threats or disinformation could diminish the final and binding nature of the arbitral decision.

“The Marcos administration, backed by the power of international law, will never retreat from defending Philippine sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea,” Castro said.