BBM: PH must do more than protest

(UPDATES) PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Thursday the Philippines needs to do more than protest Beijing's «illegal actions» in the South China Sea.

Chinese coast guard personnel wielding knives, sticks and an axe surrounded and boarded three Filipino navy boats last week, video showed, foiling what Manila said was a resupply mission to troops manning a grounded warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, on Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the 2024 National Employment Summit at The Manila Hotel, Marcos said the latest aggression at the Ayungin Shoal was not an armed attack as there was no gunfire.

This frame grab from handout video footage taken on June 17, 2024 and released on June 25 by the Armed Forces of the Philippines shows Chinese Coast Guard personnel aboard rigid hull inflatable boats (in black) during a confrontation with Philippine Navy personnel on their respective vessels (in gray) near the Second Thomas Shoal in disputed waters of the South China Sea. The Philippines on June 24 denounced Beijing's «aggressive and illegal use of force» during last week's South China Sea clash between its navy and the Chinese coast guard. Beijing insisted its coast guard behaved in a «professional and restrained» way and blamed Manila for the clash. Handout / ARMED FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES / AFP

«They did not point a gun at us but it was a deliberate action to stop our people. But in the process of that… they boarded a Philippine vessel and took equipment from a Philippine vessel,» Marcos said during a chance interview.

«Although there were no arms involved, nonetheless it was still a deliberate action and it is still essentially an illegal action that was taken by the Chinese force,» he added.

It was the latest and most serious incident in a series of escalating confrontations between Chinese and Philippine ships as Beijing steps up efforts to push its claims to nearly all of the strategically located waterway.

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«We have filed over a hundred protests, we have already made a similar number of demarches,» Marcos told reporters.

«We have to do more than just that,» he said, without specifying what other steps Manila might take.