Nguồn tin từ Văn phòng Tổng thống Philippin ngày 20/6/2011 cho hay, việc triển khai tàu chiến đến biển Đông (Philippin gọi là vùng biển Tây Philippin) là hành động khẳng định chủ quyền mà nước này đã tuyên bố chứ không phải nhằm khiêu khích Bắc Kinh.
Navy flagship deployed to assert sovereignty
Philippine Navy ship BRP Rajah Humabon. U.S. Navy Photo
The deployment of a Philippine Navy ship to the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) was intended to assert Manila’s sovereignty over islands that it claims there, not to stir up Beijing, Malacañang said on Monday.
According to Secretary Ricky Carandang of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office, the Rajah Humabon was sent to secure Scarborough Shoal, a part of the Philippines.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile late last week warned that deploying the Humabon beyond the shoal would agitate China.
The deployment of the Rajah Humabon, the Navy’s flagship, came in the wake of repeated incursions of Chinese vessels into the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone, or EEZ.
“We are not agitating [China]. I do not view this as an agitation and I don’t think the Chinese would view it as an agitation either. What we are doing is really just the exercise of any sovereign country within its own territorial waters. I think there is nothing wrong in the way we are trying to communicate and explain the steps undertaken by our government regarding this issue,” Carandang told reporters.
“The international community is just one audience, but I think the people would like to know what the government is doing about the West Philippine Sea [claim]. I don’t think that (deployment) is bad,” he said.
Carandang added that any decision to convene the National Security Council as advised by Enrile would have to be made by the National Security Cluster.
But for Rep. Todoro Casiño of Bayan Muna party-list, sending the over half-a-century-old Humabon to the Scarborough Shoal was an antic that would tend to escalate, rather than cool down, tensions in the Spratlys, a group of islands in the South China Sea claimed in part or in whole also by the Philippines, China, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.
“The Aquino government, or at least the President and some of his officials, seems intent on escalating the dispute over the Spratlys.
First they (President Benigno Aquino 3rd and the officials) are insisting in bringing in the United States into the fray. Now they are provoking a military engagement by deploying a full-fledged warship. This is not a video game, Mr. President. There’s no restart button here, so better be careful,” Casiño said.
President Aquino is said to be fond of video games.
A guessing game, Singapore apparently believed, was being played by Beijing in the Spratly Islands.
Also on Monday, it urged China to be more open about the extent of its territorial claims to the islands, saying that Beijing’s ambiguity was causing international concern.
The foreign ministry said that while Singapore had no claims of its own, the city-state was a major trading nation whose interests could be affected by issues relating to freedom of navigation in the area.
The tensions between China and other rival claimants to the strategically vital South China Sea—home to two potentially oil-rich archipelagos, the Paracels and Spratlys—escalated in recent weeks.
The Philippines and Vietnam in particular have expressed alarm at what they say are increasingly aggressive actions by Beijing in the disputed waters, but China has insisted that it is committed to resolving the issue peacefully.
Singapore’s statement was issued after a Chinese surveillance vessel, the Haixun 31, docked in the island-state after passing through the West Philippine Sea.
“We . . . think it is in China’s own interests to clarify its claims in the SCS (South China Sea) with more precision as the current ambiguity as to their extent has caused serious concerns in the international maritime community,” the Singapore statement said.
“Singapore is not a claimant state and takes no position on the merits or otherwise of the various claims in the SCS,” it added.
“But as a major trading nation, Singapore has a critical interest in anything affecting freedom of navigation in all international sea lanes, including those in the SCS,” the statement said.
With Malacañang permission, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. will meet with China’s legislative leaders to discuss the disputed Spratly Islands with them.
“In the company of five fellow congressmen, I will meet with my counterparts in Beijing legislative branch. We will have a meeting with the chairman of the standing committee on legislature to discuss various topics. I think it will be unavoidable to talk about the Spratlys,” Belmonte of the Fourth District of Quezon City, said during a station interview at dzRH in Pasay City (Metro Manila).
The former three-term mayor of Quezon City added that his China trip has the blessings of President Aquino and Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Del Rosario.
When asked what the stand of Manila would be if the Spratly issue cropped up, Belmonte said that he was aware of the basis of the Philippine claim.
“I will tell them that what we are after is to keep watch over our territory. The maritime 200 miles extend from our shores,” the Speaker added.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, an exclusive economic zone is a part of a particular sea over which a state has special rights to exploration and use of marine resources.
The zone stretches from the seaward edge of the state’s territorial sea out to 200 nautical miles from its coast.
Belmonte said that the Beijing trip had long been scheduled and the Congress recess gave him the opportunity to take it.
Llanesca T. Panti, Jaime Pilapil And AFP
Nguồn: The Manila Times,
