Philippines rejects PRC’s demand to remove grounded Navy ship
Reuters
The Philippines will not remove a dilapidated Navy ship grounded on an atoll in the South China Sea, its defense chief said in late November 2021, rejecting a demand by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) after it blocked a mission to resupply the vessel’s crew.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana dismissed PRC assertions that the Philippines had committed to remove the BRP Sierra Madre, pictured, which was intentionally grounded at the Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to reinforce Manila’s sovereignty claims in the Spratly archipelago.
The 100-meter-long tank landing ship was built for the United States Navy during World War II.
“That ship has been there since 1999. If there was commitment, it would have been removed a long time ago,” Lorenzana told reporters.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Beijing “demands the Philippine side honor its commitment and remove its illegally grounded vessel.”
The shoal, 105 nautical miles off Palawan, is the temporary home of a small contingent of Philippine military aboard the rusty ship, which is stuck on a reef.
Lorenzana accused the PRC of “trespassing” when its coast guard interrupted a resupply mission for the troops. The PRC claims the majority of the South China Sea as its own, using a “nine-dash line” on maps that an international arbitration ruling in 2016 said has no legal basis.
The shoal is within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the PRC is a signatory. “We have two documents attesting that we have sovereign rights in our EEZ while they don’t, and their claims have no basis,” Lorenzana said. “China should abide by its international obligations that it is part of.”
IMAGE CREDIT: REUTERS
