ASEAN Summit not proper venue for ‘in-depth’ discussion on Recto Bank incident— DFA exec

This week’s summit of Southeast Asian leaders is not the proper venue for an “in-depth” discussion of the June 9 sinking of a stationary Philippine fishing boat by a Chinese vessel in Recto Bank, a Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) official said Tuesday.

DFA Assistant Secretary Junever Mahilum-West said the Philippines can call on parties in the South China Sea dispute to exercise restraint and desist from taking any action that would cause tension in the region but “traditionally the summit is not the venue where you discuss issues.”

She said there are other fora for the Philippines to address the incident including direct talks with China.

“For one thing, there is this investigation that’s ongoing, that up to the present discloses a certain fact that we did not know before. Also, we lodged a strong protest with China and we are awaiting China’s response to this,” Mahilum-West said at a news conference in Malacañang.

“So in the meantime that these major factors are pending, I think it would be premature of of me to say that we will raise the issue at the summit.”

A Chinese vessel rammed a Filipino fishing boat causing it to founder, and later on abandoned the crew in the Recto Bank off Palawan.

The Philippines is the current country coordinator of the ASEAN-China dialogue, giving it more clout to have the incident, which Philippine government officials earlier condemned, to be reflected in the statement to be issued at the end of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit to be held in Bangkok, Thailand on June 22-23.

A draft communique seen by GMA News Online said Southeast Asian nations will again call out against aggressive actions that can cause clashes, accidents or miscalculation in the South China Sea. The sea row is expected to be discussed in the 10-nation summit.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who adopted a friendly stance towards Beijing, has refrained from publicly criticizing China after the boat ramming incident.

Duterte said on Monday that he would wait for the results of the investigation on what he called a "maritime accident” and told the Philippine Navy to "stay out of trouble.”

Mahilum-West underscored the need for ASEAN and China to complete the negotiations for the Code of Conduct following the Recto Bank incident.

“Incidents like what happened, emphasized the important of having a Code of Conduct so that we could avoid, we could prevent these incidents from happening in the future,” she said.

The DFA official said ASEAN and China have been negotiating on a single draft negotiating text “and they have made progress, and they expect to have the first reading finished by end of this year.”

“So to be followed by several readings, one or two readings afterwards,” she said.

Apart from plenary discussions, Mahilum-West said Duterte will have bilateral meetings with “a couple of” Southeast leaders whose names she declined to disclose.

ASEAN leaders are expected to adopt the ASEAN leaders’ vision on partnership for sustainability, Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris in the ASEAN Region, ASEAN leaders’ statement on the ASEAN Cultural Year for 2019 and the ASEAN Indo-Pacific Outlook.

The summit’s theme for this year calls on the bloc “to be more effective in responding to the changing global and regional architecture,” according to Mahilum-West.

This will be the President’s third visit to Thailand since assuming office. His previous visits were in November 2016 and in March 2017.

The President will be accompanied in the summit by Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez, Social Welfare Secretary Rolando Bautista, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat and Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol. — RSJ, GMA News