A ranking officer of the Armed Forces of the Philippines yesterday explained that a Malaysian Navy ship recently seen passing through the waters of Tawi-Tawi was mistaken by local government officials as a Chinese warship.
Lt. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, commander of the AFP-Western Mindanao Command, said Taganak, Tawi-Tawi Mayor Hadji Moh Faisal Jamalul reached out to him to report the presence of a foreign vessel spotted by fishermen near the Turtle Group of Islands in the southern part of the province last Aug. 2.
“He misidentified the Malaysian Navy as the Chinese Navy passing through our boundary with Malaysia. I just want to correct that information that is not the Chinese Navy but the Malaysian Navy with all due respect to our good mayor in Taganak,” Sobejana said.
Sobejana disclosed that a bilateral exercise with the Malaysian Navy was conducted earlier this month to ensure that there will be no more incursions of foreign vessels in the area.
The exercise was prompted by the repeated “uninformed” passage of Chinese warships on Sibutu Strait in Tawi-Tawi since February of this year.
“Since Aug. 2, there were no more incursions by foreign vessels,” Sobejana said. “I think the leadership of China issued a guidance to its Navy not to immerse in our territory without coordination or advance information with us,” he continued.
Meanwhile, Sobejana admitted that foreign vessels need not to seek prior coordination when passing through internationally acknowledged “sea lanes of communication” such as the Sibutu Strait.
“Sibutu Strait is a sea lane of communication. It means that big vessels are passing through it from one country to another and we acknowledge that. We do not object that. In fact it is our responsibility to ensure their safe passage,” Sobejana said, noting some provisions in the international treaty United National Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“Roughly $51 billion a year of shipments are passing through there a year so we must ensure their safe and secured travel, that is called ‘innocent passage,’” Sobejana explained. The principle of innocent passage was indicated in Section 3, Article 45 of the UNCLOS. (Martin Sadongdong)
