Lacson welcomes reaffirmation of US-PHL Mutual Defense Treaty

The "reaffirmed" Mutual Defense Treaty between the Philippines and the United States would help balance power in the Asia-Pacific, including the South China Sea, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Thursday.

"There you go. The US-PHL Mutual Defense Treaty is one yet untapped weapon in our arsenal. I certainly hope we do not draw that weapon. Meantime, we might as well keep it there," Lacson, chairperson of the Senate committee on national defense, said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken committed that the Biden administration will defend the Philippines as China passed a new law allowing its coast guard to shoot foreign vessels in the disputed South China Sea.

"Secretary Blinken stressed the importance of the Mutual Defense Treaty for the security of both nations, and its clear application to armed attacks against the Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the Pacific, which includes the South China Sea," the US State Department said in a statement.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. announced on Wednesday that he filed a diplomatic protest against China, calling its new coast guard law a "verbal threat of war" to other countries.

China's legislative body passed this measure last week which allows its coast guard to use "all necessary means" to stop or prevent threats from foreign vessels.

Specified among its provisions are the circumstances under which kinds of weapons—hand-held, shipborne, or airborne—can be used.

The July 2016 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague invalidated China's massive claim over the resource-rich South China Sea, including the West Philippine Sea.

Manila recently called on Beijing to comply but the latter called the four-year-old decision "illegal and invalid."—AOL, GMA News