Gov’t scraps sandbar plan after China anger

President Duterte ordered troops to scrap plans of building a shelter for Filipino fishermen at Sandy Cay near Pagasa Island in the disputed South China Sea after Beijing complained, Defense Secretary Delfin T. Lorenzana said yesterday.

The military in August brought bamboo and palm roofing materials to one of three sandbars that emerged near one of their garrisons in the Spratlys archipelago in the contested sea, Lorenzana said.

''We tried to put some structures (on) one of the sandbars near our island and the Chinese reacted,'' Lorenzana told the “ASEAN Leadership Amid A New World Order: Protecting the ASEAN Community from Evolving Political-Security Challenges" forum at the Rizal Ballroom of the ShangriLa Hotel in Makati City.

''And so the President came to know about this and he said: 'Let's pull out'.''

Lorenzana said the shelter would have provided refuge to fishermen during bad weather. Troops, he said, were deployed to Sandy Cay to build the shelter and not occupy the islands.

The apparent reversal comes at a time of improving relations between China and the Philippines, which until recently had bitterly contested their overlapping claims to the sea.

Lorenzana later told reporters that Foreign Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano advised Duterte there was an agreement between the two nations not to put up structures on new South China Sea features.

China claims most of the strategically vital sea, through which $5 trillion in annual shipping trade passes, and which is believed to sit atop vast oil and gas deposits.

It has been turning reefs in the sea into islands, installing military aircraft and missile systems on them.