Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday ordered Filipino troops to deploy on unoccupied South China Sea islands and reefs claimed by Manila, in a move that could provoke rival claimants including Beijing.
In a surprise announcement, Duterte told reporters he has ordered soldiers to build structures on Philippine-claimed islands and reefs in the strategically located Spratly archipelago.
‘I have ordered the armed forces to occupy all,’ he said during a visit to a military camp on the western Philippine island of Palawan, the largest land mass close to the Spratly group.
‘Erect structures there and raise the Philippine flag,’ he said, adding Manila was claiming ‘nine or ten’ Spratly islands, reefs or cays.
China claims most of the sea, including waters and rocks close to the shores of neighbours and has been building artificial islands and installing weapons on them, including on some reefs in the Spratly chain that are also claimed by Manila.
Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims in the strategic waters.
‘It looks like everybody is making a grab for the islands there, so we better live on those that are still vacant,’ Duterte said.
‘At least, let us get what is ours now and make a strong point there that it is ours,’ he added.
Duterte announced his ‘separation’ from the United States in October, declaring he had realigned with China as the two agreed to resolve their South China Sea dispute through talks.
His efforts to engage China, months after a tribunal in the Hague ruled that Beijing did not have historic rights to the South China Sea, in themselves marked a reversal in foreign policy.
The Philippines marks its 119th year of independence from more than three centuries of Spanish rule on June 12.
Duterte also said he ‘may’ visit the Philippine-claimed areas in June to mark Philippine Independence Day.
‘In the coming Independence Day, I may go to Pagasa island to raise the flag there,’ Duterte said, using the local name for Thitu.
Thitu is close to Subi Reef, one of seven man-made islands in the Spratlys that China is accused of militarising with surface-to-air missiles, among other armaments.
The Philippines occupies nine ‘features’, or islands and reefs, in the South China Sea, including a World War II-vintage transport ship which ran aground on Second Thomas Shoal in the late 1990s.
Last month, Defence Minister Delfin Lorenzana said the military would strengthen its facilities in the Spratlys, building a new port, paving an existing rough airstrip and repairing other structures.
Duterte said last month it was pointless trying to challenge China’s fortification of its man-made islands and ridiculed the media for referring to his comment that he would jet ski to one Beijing’s reclaimed reefs.
‘We cannot stop them because they are building it with their mind fixed that they own the place. China will go to war,’ he said. ‘People want me to jet ski. These fools believed me.’
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