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Friday, March 29, 2024

‘Ask local govts about China’

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LOCAL governments should be involved in resolving the maritime disputes in the West Philippine Sea—particularly those involving China—former Senator Leticia Shahani-Ramos said Thursday.

Speaking during the joint Senate, national defense and foreign relations hearing on the aggressive Chinese reclamation activities in the disputed waters, Shahani said she believed the matter was now a domestic affair.

Question hour. Former Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani is shown questioning Defense Secretary
Voltaire Gazmin and Armed Forces Chief Gregorio Pio Catapang on the Philippines’ response
to China’s aggressive reclamation on Philippine territory during a Senate hearing on Thursday.
Beside her is Senator Teofisto Guingona III. Lino Santos

The matter should be brought to the attention of the people who should speak on the matter.

Because of this, she said this issue must be brought back to the people who should speak.

“Let the local government be involved in resolving the issue and defending our coastal towns and enforce an independent foreign policy,” Shahani-Ramos said.

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“Let us bring this issue back to the people and let them prove that we Filipinos can do it.  Let’s not wait for the military, for foreign help.”

Shahani-Ramos made her statement even as National Security Director-General Cesar Garcia said the territorial disputes in the West Philippine seas had overtaken all security issues in the Philippines’ hierarchy of national security concerns.

He cited the recent developments in the country’s maritime disputes with China, particularly the reports of its massive reclamation projects in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

He said the maritime disputes had trumped all other internal concerns, including the Muslim and communist insurgencies.

“It is clear that this internal security challenge has ceased to be an existential threat to the country’s socio-political stability and to our democracy,” Garcia said.

Shahani-Ramos said there had been no appeals from the coastal provinces facing the West Philippine Sea, and that it seemed no one was bothering to talk about the problem.

“We should assert ourselves as a major power, as an archipelago, as a maritime country,” Shahani-Ramos said.

She said she would like to appeal to the officers here and to the entire bureaucracy that the Philippine government respond to the issue in the West Philippine Sea.

“I would  like to make this point: They are imprisoning ourselves, the bureaucracy of the Philippine government, the officers of the DFA and DND, which are directly responsible. We should be able to speak out,” Shahani-Ramos said.

She asked Defense officials what the Philippines’ response was after the Chinese fired water cannons on Filipino fishermen.

She recalled that when she was in the Senate, she used to ask Defense officials why they failed to protest each time the Chinese violated Philippine space, and the official answer was always “Ma’am, we can’t do anything.”

She said it was time to change the reply.

               

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