Philippines, China Coast Guards plan to hold joint patrol in WPS this March

MANILA, Philippines, March 1 ------ The Philippine and China Coast Guards are expected to enter into an agreement in March for joint patrols in the West Philippine Sea or South China Sea, Sen. Erwin Tulfo said.

The senator learned about the impending signing of a memorandum of agreement between the two coast guards from Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Jing Quan during their meeting. The PCG, in recent months, had complained about CCG's harassment of its personnel and Filipino fishermen in the WPS. The CCG countered that Philippine vessels ventured into their territorial waters. "Instead of having disputes there in the West Philippine Sea, there will be cooperation instead like [joint] patrol, search and rescue, [and environmental] clean up [operation]," Tulfo said in Filipino and English. "That was what Ambassador Jing mentioned [during our meeting]," Tulfo, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said in a briefing.

Tulfo and Jing met in a hotel supposedly to address the recent "word war" between Senators Risa Hontiveros, Francis Pangilinan, and Tulfo himself and Chinese embassy spokesmen Ji Lingpeng and Guo Wei. But Tulfo said this issue was not discussed. Together with Foreign Affairs Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro, they discussed the Philippines' desire to finalize by December 2026 the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea during the country's chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Source: manilatimes.net