By Prashanth Parameswaran
The country’s armed forces chief says it is “a top priority.” But will it be realized?
Earlier this week, Reuters reported that the Philippine armed forces chief had said in an interview that the construction of a new naval base opposite the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea was “a top priority.”
Plans for constructing a base in Oyster Bay in Palawan – located around 100 miles from the Spratly Islands – date back years and were first publicly announced back in 2013. But the renewed urgency recently expressed by General Gregorio Catapang, Jr., the head of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), makes sense given Manila’s alarm about China’s behavior in the South China Sea. China is currently carrying out rapid land reclamation activities in seven reefs and recently warned Philippine air force and navy planes at least six times to leave areas around the Spratlys in the past week. It has also refused to participate in the case the Philippines filed against it with the arbitral tribunal at The Hague. As Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario recently put it in remarks earlier this week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, from Manila’s perspective, “we must do something quickly.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat