MUNTINLUPA City Rep. Rozzano Rufino Biazon on Sunday called for a tight watch over the research team of Chinese scientists in the resource-rich Benham Rise to ensure that they do not set up any structures or surveillance equipment in the area.
Biazon, vice chairman of the House committee on national defense, urged the government to send an
all-Filipino team to conduct a study on the continental shelf.
“We should closely monitor their activity to ensure that they are just doing research [work], and not building any structure or leaving equipment there,” Biazon told radio dzBB.
“Their mission could be more than marine research… [it could be an] intelligence operation. They might leave their own sensors under the sea so they could detect surface ships [passing the area]. They could also place listening posts underwater,” he said.
He urged the government to assert the country’s rights.
“We should be assertive of our rights and the rights of the Philippines over Benham Rise,” he added.
Benham Rise is part of the Philippines’ continental shelf awarded by the United Nations in 2012 providing the country exclusive sovereign rights over it.
Earlier, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said the government has approved the applications of 26 research firms from the United States, Japan and South Korea to conduct scientific research in Benham rise or Philippine Rise, contradicting allegations the Duterte administration favors China to sea bed.
In a statement, Roque also said he never said Filipinos had no capability to do research in Benham Rise, saying there were fixed guidelines to follow and, so far, China qualified.