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PHL protests Chinese construction on Mabini Reef


(Updated 3:30 p.m.) The Philippines has protested China’s alleged construction activities in a Manila-claimed reef in the disputed South China Sea, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said Wednesday.
 
Following another bold Chinese assertion in the contested waters, Del Rosario said Manila sent a note verbale or diplomatic note to Beijing last April to protest what is calls China's reclamation of Johnson Reef.
 
The reef, known locally as Mabini Reef, is within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone and continental shelf as mandated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Philippine officials say.

Both the Philippines and China, along with more than 100 nations, are signatories to the UN treaty.
 
But Del Rosario said China rejected the Philippine protest, insisting that Johnson Reef is Chinese territory.
 
China claims the South China Sea nearly in its entirety even as it overlaps with the sovereign jurisdiction of its smaller Southeast Asian neighbors like the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. The Philippines refers to parts of South China Sea as West Philippine Sea.
 
Asked if China is building an airstrip on the reef as what was reported earlier, Del Rosario said: “That’s one possibility.”
 
“We don’t know exactly what is their intention there,” he said.

For his part, Defense spokesperson Peter Paul Galvez said: "This activity contravenes the spirit of the DOC (Declaration on the Conduct of parties in the South China Sea) and a security concern of all in the region. These provocative acts, which they should immediately stop, further disturbs the fabric of regional peace and stability."
 
Another senior Foreign Affairs official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told GMA News Online that the Philippines raised China’s building activities in Johnson Reef during the recently concluded Southeast Asian leaders summit in Myanmar, as well as Chinese harassment of Filipino fishermen in two Philippine territories – Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal and Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.

The DFA official said the size of the land area reclaimed by the Chinese vessels in Johnson Reef could be up to 31 hectares.
 
The official said that a suspected Chinese vessel also intruded into a five-nautical mile “exclusion zone” around the Philippine Galoc oil field off Palawan province recently.
 
Private Filipino operators of the oil platform tried to communicate with the suspected Chinese vessel but it did not reply, the official said.
 
A “Notice to Mariners” was issued by the Philippine operators to warn vessels not to enter into the exclusion zone to prevent accidental damage of oil pipelines that can result into an oil spill, the official said.
 
Manila has sought international arbitration before a The Hague-based court to try to declare China’s far-reaching claims, which many feared could impede trade and sea and air access and provoke a major military confrontation. 

The Philippines has included Mabini Reef in its written pleading or memorial that was submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration “to clarify Mabini Reef’s physical character,” the DFA said. — RSJ, GMA News
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