MANILA — The Philippines may ask the United States to send surveillance planes to help it monitor a disputed area in the South China Sea, a presidential spokesman said July 2, in a move that could deepen tensions with China.
The move to request P-3C Orion electronic surveillance planes would first require the approval of the top defense advisers of President Benigno Aquino III, Ramon Carandang said.
The request “is a possibility as a way to enhance our monitoring capabilities,” Carandang told Agence France-Presse. “But definitely, this is just for monitoring and surveillance purposes.”
The statement comes two weeks after Aquino pulled out a coast guard ship and a fisheries bureau boat that had been engaged in a tense standoff with Chinese ships in Scarborough Shoal, a group of rocky outcrops in the South China Sea.
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