BusinessMirror December 13, 2020

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Sunday, December 13, 2020 Vol. 16 No. 66

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NORTHERN Luzon Command commander Lt. Gen. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos Jr. (right) emerges from a helicopter after an aerial inspection of Cagayan in the aftermath of Typhoon Ulysses. He also made an aerial reconnaissance of the command’s areas of operations in Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan and Tarlac on his way to Nolcom’s headquarters at Camp Aquino in Tarlac.

SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

Newly acquired surveillance, military assets boost AFP’s capability to monitor foreign intrusion in the northern territories

BURGOS gestures while giving a briefing on Tuesday at the General Headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo on the current state of the Northern Luzon Command and on the progress of the command’s programs and strategies in relation to its mandated mission.

T

BURGOS briefs officials of the Department of National Defense on operational updates and Nolcom’s effort on territorial defense in relation to the West Philippine Sea, the Batanes Group of Islands and the Philippine Rise region.

By Rene Acosta

HE military has intensified its air and maritime patrols in Northern Luzon, including the eastern seaboard facing the Pacific Ocean, amid a noted uptick in the presence and intrusions of Chinese ships in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) at a time when the country is battling to control the Covid-19 pandemic.

The maritime and surface patrols are regularly carried out, according to Armed Forces Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) commander Lt. Gen. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos Jr., as his command had earlier reported also spotting a Chinese research vessel, Jia Geng, about 59 nautical miles west of Calayan Island in Cagayan in September.

“MARPATs [maritime patrols] and SURPATs [surface patrols] are regularly conducted on top of the ‘unplanned’ patrols whenever we receive reports of incursions,” Burgos, who commands the largest area among the unified commands of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said. Nolcom’s maritime domain, which it is mandated to secure, is also 10 times larger

PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 48.0670

BURGOS: “MARPATs [maritime patrols] and SURPATs [surface patrols] are regularly conducted on top of the ‘unplanned’ patrols whenever we receive reports of incursions.”

than that of the land area within its operational jurisdiction. “I would like to emphasize that our monitoring is not just limited to these patrols. We have maritime surveillance platforms, we have human intelligence networks and we have littoral monitoring detachments and stations which form part of our responsive and reinvigorated monitoring system across our territorial waters and airspace,” Burgos stated. The pressing territorial defense issue concerning the country’s vast maritime waters, with focus on the oil-rich WPS, flickered again in the past few days after AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Gilbert Gapay admitted the increased presence of Chinese vessels, including those of maritime militias and research platforms, guarded by Chinese paramilitary and military ships in the territory that Beijing disputes with the Philippines. “Yes, it increased because we could already monitor them. Before, there [were] a lot of them but we did not have the capability [to monitor them]. Now, we already have the monitoring capability, and we have finally seen how wide

the operations of the Chinese in the West Philippine Sea [are],” Gapay explained in underscoring the continued arrival of assets into the military. “It’s a mixture [of ships]. Most of the time, it’s their fishing vessels, and of course, their maritime exploration and research vessels are also there, and these are backed up by warships and the Coast Guard of the Chinese armed forces,” the military chief of staff said.

Northern incursions

THE regular presence of Chinese ships in the WPS and the September 18 presence of Jia Geng in the waters off Calayan proved Beijing has stepped up its maritime activities and has already spread into the country’s strategic waters, and such was noted while the government is still in the middle of the battle fighting Covid-19 and its spread. “There were some other incursions, however, such were of considerable distance from our mainland compared to that of Jia Geng,” Burgos said. “These other incursions were primarily due to Continued on A2

n JAPAN 0.4613 n UK 63.9099 n HK 6.2013 n CHINA 7.3431 n SINGAPORE 35.9998 n AUSTRALIA 36.2089 n EU 58.3533 n SAUDI ARABIA 12.8158

Source: BSP (December 11, 2020)


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