Members of a resupply mission prepare to embark the grounded naval ship BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal, one of the nine outposts guarding the West Philippine Sea, to replenish supplies for its troops. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines — Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said there is a pressing need to leverage and strengthen the country’s ties with allies such as the United States, amid the changing “threat situation” in the West Philippine Sea.
“With the changing threat situation, at ang mga kilos ng ating mga katunggali sa West Philippine Sea, kailangan talagang i-leverage natin ang mga alyansa,” Teodoro told reporters prior a Commission on Appointments (CA) hearing on his ad interim appointment as DND chief.
(With the changing threat situation and the actions of other parties in the West Philippine Sea, we really need to leverage our alliances.)
“Not for anything, but to enforce the rules-based international order or international law at ang [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea],” he added in English and Filipino.
Senator Robinhood Padilla, in a Senate hearing held Tuesday, questioned the capability of the Philippine Coast Guard to conduct resupply missions in the West Philippine Sea without assistance from the United States.
Padilla posed this question to determine whether or not PCG’s latest resupply mission held on September 8 would have been successful without the help of the US Navy, which deployed an aircraft to monitor PCG’s tension-filled resupply mission to Philippine troops stationed in the grounded BRP Sierra Madre on Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal in the West Philippine Sea,