The United States embassy in the Philippines on Thursday confirmed the shipment of fuel from the US naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to a commercial storage facility in Subic Bay.
Embassy spokesperson Kanishka Gangopadhay said the shipment was “made through proper channels, using established logistics contracts with Philippine commercial entities.”
Gangopadhay did not provide details on the size of the shipment to Subic Bay, a former US naval base. He, however, rejected talk that the US was pre-positioning military supplies in the Philippines.
“This shipment was one of many regular shipments of fuel to the Philippines, made through existing logistics contracts with Philippine commercial entities,” he stressed.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Department of National Defense also came out with parallel statements on the estimated 39-million liters of fuel carried on the commercial tanker Yosemite Trader.
This after Senator Imee Marcos criticized the “inexplicable silence” of the Philippine and US governments that spurred the belief that the US may be loading up on fuel for its forces in the Indo-Pacific region.
“[It] only raised suspicions about the pre-positioning of military supplies in the country amid predictions of an eventual war between China and the US over Taiwan,” she said.
The US and the Philippines have been holding joint patrols in the West Philippines amid the increasing aggressiveness of Chinese forces there.
The WPS, which is in the Philippines’ 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, overlaps with the South China Sea which is claimed in its entirety by China.
In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration shot down China’s territorial claim while affirming the Philippines’ sovereign stake.
“The shipment of fuel from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, USA to a storage facility in the Subic Bay Freeport in the Philippines via the commercial tanker Yosemite Trader is part of regular commercial transactions between the US government and Philippine companies,” the DND said in a statement.