PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed great alarm over the collision between the Chinese Coast Guard and the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea.

Marcos made the statement after four Philippine personnel were injured following China’s harassment and dangerous actions against Philippine vessels at Ayungin Shoal.

But the President clarified that despite the incident, the Philippines will not invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty.

“I do not think that it is a time or the reason to invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty. However, we continue to view with great alarm this continuing dangerous maneuvers and dangerous actions that are being done against our seamen, our Coast Guard. And this time, they damaged the cargo ship and caused some injury to some of our seamen and I think that we cannot view this in any way but in the most serious way.,” Marcos said.

Marcos said, the Philippines will file a protest against China.

“Once again, we will make our objections known and hope that we can continue to communicate to find a way so that such actions are no longer seen in the West Philippine Sea,” Marcos said.

“Once again, this is a clear intrusion into our Philippine maritime territory and it is, as usual, of great concern. And I see this as absolutely unnecessary because if it is truly a research vessel then we could have come to a very simple agreement that the research vessel will ply the waters and do the research that they need to do. However, there is a suspicion that they are not only research vessels so, again, this is a bit of an escalation of the tension that is present in the West Philippines Sea,” Marcos added.

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Chona Yu