Philippines protests China law on coast guard’s weapon use

Bloomberg

The Philippines has filed a diplomatic protest against China’s law giving its coast guard more freedom to fire on foreign vessels, the Southeast Asian nation’s foreign affairs minister said.
“While enacting law is a sovereign prerogative, this one — given the area involved or for that matter the open South China Sea — is a verbal threat of war to any country that defies the law,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin said on his Twitter on Wednesday.
Locsin said he filed the protest as inaction means the Philippines is submitting to the new law, which also allows Chinese coast guard to board and inspect foreign ships operating in China’s “jurisdictional waters.” He said that the law was “none of our business.”
Both countries have overlapping claims in the resource rich South China Sea. Last year, Manila filed a diplomatic protest against Beijing over the Chinese Coast Guard’s alleged confiscation of Filipino fishermen’s equipment in disputed waters.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana, the commanding general of the Philippine Army, will be the next chief of the nation’s armed forces, President Rodrigo Duterte’s office said on Wednesday.
“We are confident that General Sobejana will continue to modernise our military and undertake reform initiatives to make the Armed Forces truly professional in its mandate
as the protector of the people and the state,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement.
Sobejana will replace General Gilbert Gapay, who is retiring next month. The new military chief’s appointment comes at a time when soldiers are expected to help secure and store coronavirus vaccines that may start arriving in the Philippines next month.