Malacañang: Duterte to visit PH Rise

Malacañang said that the President will be visiting the Philippine Rise to commemorate its renaming from its previous “Benham Rise.”

The announcement came from Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, Jr. during a press conference on May 8, Tuesday.

“The President will be commemorating the renaming of Benham Rise to Philippine Rise by visiting the Philippine Rise itself, and this on May 15 to 16,” he said.

Roque further said that President Rodrigo Roa Duterte will also be marking the start of the scientific research of the Philippine Rise, which will be conducted by about 50 scientists.

Duterte in a speech on April 26 declared that he will sail to the Philippine Rise to assert the Philippines’ ownership of it.

“Next week, I’m going to set sail to Benham Rise and I will make a statement there that nobody but nobody owns this place, including the continental shelf,” he said, though he really did not sail to the Philippine Rise the week after that declaration.

This was Duterte’s response to the critics of his administration’s stance to allow China to explore parts of the South China Sea, when the latter refuses to acknowledge the Philippines’ ownership of some parts of the disputed waters.

Duterte and his administration have downplayed several territorial disputes with China to prioritize the ties of the former with the Philippines.

One of these was China’s move to submit names of undersea features from the Philippine Rise. Duterte in a speech said that it was understandable for China to do such thing as they are Chinese.

“Eh alangan nilang gawing German? Ang alam nila Chinese eh. Those are just directions na tapos na sila d’yan (Well, should they name it in German? Chinese is the language they know. Those are just directions that they are finished there),” he said in mid-February.

Despite this, Roque, however, confirmed that they tapped the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to protest China’s move. The protest was rejected.

(Read: SCUFN rejects PH’s plea to nullify PH Rise feature naming)

Recent reports also revealed that China has been militarizing some of its man-made islands along the Spratly group of islands. Despite this, the administration said that it believes in China’s good faith.