The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Friday, April 4, that it was already informed by the Chinese government about the arrest of three Filipinos suspected of spying.
DFA spokesperson Ma. Teresita Daza said that protecting the rights and the interests of the arrested Filipinos remains the prime priority of the government.
She said that Manila also reached out to Beijing to ensure that the allegations are tried with due process and full respect to the rights of the said Filipinos in accordance with domestic law and the Philippines-China Consular Agreement.
“The Philippine Consulate General in Guangzhou is providing all necessary assistance, including appropriate legal support, for the said Filipinos,” Daza added.
On Thursday, April 3, China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that it arrested three Filipinos after they were accused of spying for the Philippine intelligence agency.
Guo Jiakun, spokesman for the ministry, said in a press conference that the arrest of the said individuals, who the Chinese embassy in Manila confirmed as residents of Palawan, came after the Philippines supposedly “concocted a series of so-called Chinese spy cases.”
Both Guo and the embassy did not provide the identity of the arrested Filipinos. But according to China’s state-run media Global Times, they were identified as David Servanez, Albert Endencia and Nathalie Plizardo.
Servanez, according to the Global Times, is a long-term resident of China. He was detained after he was found repeatedly loitering near military facilities, prompting Chinese authorities to raise suspicions.
Endencia and Plizardo were also alleged to be working alongside Servanez for a member of “the Philippine intelligence service,” added the Chinese media.
In early March, the provincial government of Palawan reported that three of its residents were arrested in December last year by Chinese authorities for alleged espionage.
According to Palawan provincial government board member Ryan Maminta, two of those arrested were former scholars of the Hainan Government Scholarship Program in China.
The program is part of the sisterhood agreement between Hainan Palawan that was made to provide scholarships to 50 Palaweños at Hainan Normal University from 2018 to 2022.
The arrested individuals already returned to the Philippines after graduating from the program, but they reportedly came back to China and had since lost communication with their relatives in the country.
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The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is prepared to assist the three detained Filipinos.
AFP spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla, however, noted that the military has yet to receive any official report on the status of the DFA or the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW).
“The AFP recognizes the significance of this matter. As it falls under the purview of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), or DMW we defer to their expertise and mandate. The AFP remains ready to support as needed,” she said.
Mr. Kuo Yu-jen, a professor at the National Sun Yat-sen University’s Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies in Taiwan, said the Filipinos’ arrest could be a form of retaliation by China after the Philippines arrested Chinese nationals who were accused of espionage in recent months.
“Chinese [are] usually doing this kind of hostage retaliation,” Kuo said in an interview over Taiwan Talks on March 22. “So those Palawan students arrested at Hainan Island is a direct result of Filipino crackdown.”
Government troops led by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and AFP have arrested at least 11 Chinese nationals suspected to have committed spying activities in the Philippines since January this year. (Joseph Pedrajas, Martin Sadongdong)
