SENATOR Panfilo M. Lacson, as Senate Defense Committee chairman, vowed to tweak the proposed 2022 budget of the Department of National Defense (DND) to provide additional allocations for residents and soldiers inhabiting remote territories in the West Philippine Sea.
“Well, tamang-tama kasi budget deliberation kami ngayon sa [Well, the timing is just right because we are deliberating on the budget in the] Senate at hindi lamang sa aspekto ng West Philippine Sea; ang tinanong naming anong mga pangangailangan ninyo [and we asked them what else do you need here]?,” Lacson said at a press briefing after visiting the Kalayaan Island Group, a municipality of Palawan, on Saturday.
He was referring to the officers and residents at Pag-Asa Island, the largest of the KIG, whom he and several of his Partido Reporma spoke to.
The senator counted there were less than 200 inhabitants, occupying “just the biggest and the only barangay in the Kalayaan municipality,” adding that “even without asking the inhabitants there, of course [being] fisherfolks, they are affected, right?” referring to China’s relentlessly expanding presence in the remote areas claimed by the Philippines.
His office later revealed that during the flight from Puerto Princesa to Pag-Asa, the pilots of the private plane ferrying them received an ominous warning from the “Chinese Navy” telling them to stay away from a Chinese “military zone” to avoid “misjudgment.”
That incident came just a day after Manila strongly protested the hourlong water-cannon attack by the Chinese Coast Guard of Philippine civilian ships on a resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre, the Philippine military’s outpost in Ayungin Shoal.
Referring to the fisherfolk in the Kalayaan island, Lacson said, partly in Filipino, “They’re the ones most affected,right?” They are always threatened. But beyond that, the livelihood of people in Kalayaan or in Pag-asa merits attention from the government.”