Duterte to sail to Philippine Rise next week

FILE: President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Friday expressed his full support for the country’s hosting of the Global Launch of the International Peace Movement: Not by Force but by Art on May 20-23. (ACE MORANDANTE/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO)

MANILA – President Rodrigo R. Duterte has said he is going to visit Benham Rise, which he renamed the Philippine Rise, next week.

“Next week I’m going to sail — set sail on… I’m going to the Benham Rise,” Duterte in his speech during the 102nd Annual Communication of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the Philippines in Lanang, Davao City on Thursday.

“And I will make a statement that nobody but nobody owns this place including the continental shelf, the underground landmass that extends under the sea. And if extends to San Francisco Bay, San Francisco Bay is a property of the Republic of the Philippines,” he added.

Duterte said he has been asked on what he would do if foreign powers, including China, would claim the Philippine Rise.

“I said, ‘I will go to war.’ And I will go to war, believe me,” the Filipino leader said.

In 2012, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) of the United Nations granted the Philippines’ claim on the extended continental shelf of the Philippines Rise off the coast of Aurora province.

Duterte left on Thursday for Singapore to attend the 32nd Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) Leaders’ Summit.