Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said Thursday he has ordered military personnel to occupy all Philippines-claimed islands in the disputed South China Sea.
“We tried to be friends with everybody but we have to maintain our jurisdiction now, at least the areas under our control. And I have ordered the armed forces to occupy all these,” he said during a visit to a military camp on the Philippines island of Palawan.
Duterte said he may raise the Philippines flag on Pagasa Island, also known as Thitu Island, on the country’s independence day on June 12.
Thitu is in the Spratly island chain, parts of which are claimed by the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
Building up
The Philippines has traditionally been a forceful claimant in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Under Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino, Manila won a landmark case at an international tribunal in the Hague , which ruled China had no legal basis for the bulk of its claims in the waters.
Duterte’s administration has been cozying up to Beijing since his election last year, and territorial disputes have been pushed to the background .
In a visit to the Chinese capital in October, Duterte said to Chinese President Xi Jinping that “America has lost now. I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow. ”
Following his visit, Beijing agreed to allow Philippines fishing ships access to China-controlled territory.
“By cozying up to China and trash-talking America, Duterte has achieved something that Washington couldn’t deliver: a peaceful resolution to the Scarborough Shoal standoff,” Ashley Townsend, a regional expert at the University of Sydney, wrote for CNN Opinion at the time .
