Organizers of this year’s “Balikatan” military exercises are considering parts of Northern Luzon including Mavulis Island in Batanes provinces to serve as a venue of the annual drills.
“Our exercises rotate to different parts of the Philippines. Right now, our outlying areas are being considered as we are now externally oriented. So this means our exercises also are geared at such. One of the areas being considered is Northern Luzon. It is still being considered and there is no final decision yet,” Philippine Navy spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad said in an interview with dzRH.
This developed as the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) launched a program to bring livelihood assistance to Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea, an official announced Monday.
The program, called Livelihood Activities to Enhance Fisheries Yields and Economic Gains from the West Philippine Sea (LAYAG WPS), aims to support the estimated 385,300 Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea and provinces facing the waterway.
BFAR spokesman Nazario Briguera added in a televised briefing that the BFAR is planning to add more floating assets to help them reach more Filipino fishermen in the WPS.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. earlier ordered the military to expand its presence in Batanes – a plan that elicited an immediate warning from China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin who said the Philippines should “tread carefully and don’t play with fire” by putting troops near Taiwan.
The Department of National Defense, however, was also quick to rebuff Beijing: “Batanes is Philippine territory and China has no business warning the Philippines about what it does within its own territory.”
US maritime security expert Ray Powell, for his part, said boosting military presence in Batanes could complicate China’s problems, which eventually could be beneficial for the Philippines.
“By strengthening Philippine national defense overall and particularly in the maritime area, we want to see China have to think about more things,” he said in an interview with ANC.
“Any day that Xi Jinping wakes up in the morning and thinks this is a bad day to cause problems for the Philippines is a good day for the Philippines and so to the extent that he looks out and sees this is too complicated,” Powell added.
Plans to build more structures in Batanes are part of the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept to address gaps in the country’s defenses.