Lorenzana: Territorial dispute with China remains a security challenge

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. (Photo courtesy: PTV via PNA)

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that the Philippines’ territorial dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea remains a security challenge despite saying that the country has been handling it “very properly and very well.”

Lorenzana made this statement in a speech on Monday, March 26, at a naval base south of the capital Manila where he accepted three Beechcraft TC-90 planes donated by Japan that he said would boost maritime patrol operations by the Philippine Navy (PN).

“We must admit that much still has to be done to boost our military capability equipment in order to meet a number of persistent maritime security challenges,” the Defense Secretary said, mentioning the territorial dispute with China over resource-rich areas in the West Philippine Sea, the waters within the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, where over trillion worth of goods transits annually.

Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines also have conflicting claims in the waterway.

The strained relationship between the Philippines and China has eased since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in July 2016, and the country has improved its ties with Beijing via Chinese trade and investments.

According to Lorenzana, the Philippines was also concerned with piracy and the movement of armed insurgents in the Sulu Sea and other transitional crimes, as well as the smuggling of illegal drugs and poaching into rich fishing grounds in territorial waters.

PH accepts Beechcraft planes 

Three additional units of Beechcraft King Air TC-90 from Japan were accepted by the Philippine Navy at the Heraclo Alano Naval Base in Sangley Point, Cavite.

The turnover ceremony was led by Lorenzana, Armed Forced Chief Gen. Rey Leonardo Guerrero, Navy chief Rear Admiral Robert Empedrad, Japan Ambassador to Manila Koji Haneda and Japan Parliamentary Vice Minister of Defense Tatsuo Fukuda.

These maritime surveillance planes, Lorenzana said, would “fill the gap on our maritime surveillance so the effect [of this] is huge and it will ensure also that we can patrol our maritime domain and ensure security of passage of all ships.”

Japan initially planned to lease five surveillance planes, however, it decided last year to transfer without cost the aircraft after Tokyo’s self-defense forces law was revised. Excess defense and military equipment are now allowed to be donated to partner countries.

Fukuda said that the donation was one of Japan’s ways of supporting the Philippines’ position that there must be freedom of navigation in the West Philippine Sea.

Aside from Navy’s maritime air surveillance and intelligence surveillance capability, the TC-90 aircraft units, which have a maximum speed of 226 knots, will also be used in humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) operations.