Chinese rants on Pagasa Island visit, a deception ploy

From the Philippine News Agency (May 13): Chinese rants on Pagasa Island visit, a deception ploy

China's rants claiming that the Philippines endangered international law by bringing local and foreign journalists to Pagasa Island is all part of their deception ploy.

This was stressed by Western Command head Vice Admiral Alexander Lopez Wednesday.

"That's part of their deception ploy, it's a good thing that we took along a member of the Chinese media. By doing do, we showed to China and the rest of the world that we are not doing any developments projects (in Pagasa)," he said in Fiilipino.

Lopez stressed that there is nothing wrong with Philippines sending media representatives to Pagasa as Armed Forces chief-of-staff Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang is known to bring journalists and broadcasters with him when inspecting Filipino military installations.

"And as far as we are concerned, Philippine occupation of Pagasa Island is a legal one as stated by Presidential Decree 1596," Lopez stressed.

The same was issued by then President Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1978 and declared Pagasa Island and other features in the Kalayaan Island Group as Philippine territory.

Lopez also dared China to bring along members of the media, international and local, to their territories where reclamation and other activities are ongoing.

"We tried to be as transparent as we can to further improve the policy of the administration to be compliant with the 2002 Declaration of Conduct, so the foreign media was there, the Chinese media was there, they have seen for themselves that the Philippines was not doing anything that would violate the DOC," he added.

Earlier, the Department of National Defense stated that the Philippines strongly complies with the Declaration of the Code of Conduct between China and ASEAN which was signed in 2002.

Under the agreement, signatories are prohibited from constructing new facilities in the disputed areas and exercise self restraint.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=761384