Japan, Sweden nationals to join civilian WPS mission

Individuals from Japan and Sweden are expected to join the second civilian mission to the West Philippine Sea (WPS) on May 14 to 17, its organizer Atin Ito Coatition said Wednesday.

“For now, we have some guests from the embassy joining the convoy and a handful of people joining the guests,” Atin Ito co-convenor and Akbayan president Rafaela David said in a press conference.

“So far, we have two confirmed from Sweden and Japan, coming from concerned organizations as well,” she added.

According to David, one of the foreign participants is a Filipino-Japanese who is a Japanese citizen. She refused to divulge more information about the foreign participants.

David is hoping that more foreign nationals will join the civilian mission to Scarborough Shoal.

Around 100 boats will join the second civilian mission to the WPS that aims to conduct a “peace and solidarity regatta” and install markers or buoys in Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal.

Despite China’s recent water cannon attacks in the area, Atin Ito said the civilian mission will proceed.

“China's water cannon attacks in the West Philippine Sea is a broken philosophy. They are  not getting the desired results. On the contrary, they only nourish Filipino resolve in the WPS,” David earlier said.

Bajo de Masinloc is a place of tension between the Philippines and China.

On April 30, the Philippine Coast Guard said Chinese Coast vessels fired water cannons at Philippine civilian vessels en route to Bajo de Masinloc.

China’s water attacks caused damage to Philippine vessels. 

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion in annual ship commerce. Its territorial claims overlap with those of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

Parts of the waters within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone have been renamed as West Philippine Sea (WPS).

In 2016, an international arbitration tribunal in the Hague said China's claims had no legal basis, a decision Beijing has rejected. —VAL, GMA Integrated News