MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte invoked the Philippines’ Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the United States in light of the dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea.
Duterte said in a television interview on Wednesday the Americans must invoke the treaty, which was signed between the two countries in 1951 to aid each other in the event of foreign aggression.
“I’m calling now America. I’m invoking the RP-US pact. I would like America to gather all their Seventh Fleet in front of China. I’m asking them now. And I will join them,” Duterte said in an interview over Pastor Apollo Quiboloy’s television program.
“I will ride on the boat where admiral of the US. I will drag along (Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio) Carpio and the rest. When the Americans say, we’re here now, ready, I will press them,” he added.
However, the President warned that Palawan, one of the tourist attractions in the country, could be the collateral damage by waging war with China with the help of US over the West Philippines Sea.
“Maybe that would be the end of Palawan. Palawan may be devastated, occupied or their will be nuclear bombs. We will dry up. So nothing will grow here, we can just wait, just like a big hole coming our way, to suck us to eternity,” he said.
Article 4 of the Mutual Defense Treaty states that “each party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific area on either of the Parties would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common dangers in accordance with its constitutional processes.”
Maritime peace in the disputed territories was again tested when a Chinese trawler rammed and sunk a Filipino fishing boat in Recto Bank with the crew of a passing Vietnamese boat rescued the 22 distressed Filipino fishermen.
The Philippines, along with fellow Southeast Asian nations Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam, have overlapping claims in the sea along with China, which is expanding and militarizing territories that it claims in the maritime region./PN
Ha ha ha nuclear bomb agad. Parang basura lang na pag ayaw tapon agad. Nation will think 1000x before unleashing their nuclear bomb. They know that if they will do that, their nation also may suffer a lot. So they will it 1000x. The war will not like that they war will all conventional + cyber + A2D2 and cruise missile not nuclear war.