Barbers lauds DND move to protect PH Rise
A LAWMAKER from Mindanao Tuesday lauded the Defense Department’s establishment of a naval detachment in Aurora province to protect the Philippine’s sovereign rights over the Philippine (Benham) Rise while reiterating his call to also put up a naval facility in his province under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) to protect the country’s vast eastern seaboard.
Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, chairman of the House Dangerous Drugs Committee, said the country’s eastern seaboard, which includes the Philippine Rise, lacks enough security and protection and has been subject to China and other foreign intrusions, and often becoming a passageway of ships smuggling drugs into the country.
“Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro and the AFP’s move to build a naval detachment in Casiguran, Aurora province was laudable as this would play a role in protecting and guarding the country’s eastern seaboard,” he said. The naval detachment was part of the country’s Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CADC).
But his province Surigao del Norte, Barbers said, is also facing the eastern seaboard and there is similar and urgent need to secure and protect the area – from drug smugglers or foreign intruders – which is facing the vast Pacific Ocean.
It is for this reason that Rep. Barbers and his brother Surigao del Norte Gov. Lyndon Barbers invited Filipino and American military officials to check out on their province as a possible EDCA site where the US military can build facilities and preposition supplies, equipment and materiel thereat.
The Barbers brothers made the offer in September last year after US Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. John Aquilino said he and AFP chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. considered adding more to the current nine EDCA air force and naval facilities.
“Surigao del Norte has a distinct advantage as it is openly facing the Pacific Ocean and has an outlet to the West Philippine Sea. The ships can traverse the country from east to west and vice versa without needing to circle around,” Rep. Barbers said.
Five Philippine military installations were designated in 2016 as EDCA sites, and they include Basa Air Base in Pampanga; Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija; Antonio Bautista Air Base in Palawan; Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu; and Lumbia Air Base in Cagayan de Oro.
The four latest additional EDCA sites, as announced by the US Defense Department, includes: Naval Base Camilo Osias in Sta. Ana, Cagayan, Camp Melchor Aquino in Gamu, Isabela; Balabac Islands in Palawan; and Lal-Lo Airport in Cagayan.
The proposed expansion follows US efforts to deter China’s growing aggression in the West Philippine Sea and against Taiwan, as well as Chinese actions against Filipino ships within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
The Philippine archipelago has a long coastline on both its eastern and western seaboards. The distance between the northern tip of Surigao del Norte and Pag-Asa, the biggest island in the WPD occupied by Filipinos is about 1,220 kilometers. The southern tip of Taiwan is more than 1,400 kilometers north of Surigao del Norte.
