MALACAÑANG on Sunday confirmed the issuance of an executive order aimed at strengthening maritime security and domain awareness among Filipinos amid China's recent aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

Signed on March 25 by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, Executive Order (EO) 57 (series of 2024) underscores the need for the country to strengthen its maritime security while also raising awareness of its maritime domain amid "serious challenges" that threaten Philippine sovereignty, especially in the disputed waterway.

The six-page circular seeks to address "a range of serious challenges that threaten not only the country's territorial integrity but also the peaceful existence of Filipinos."

"Strengthening the country's maritime security and domain awareness is imperative to comprehensively tackle the crosscutting issues that impact the nation's national security, sovereignty, sovereign rights, and maritime jurisdiction over its extensive maritime zones," the EO read.

Under EO 57, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. directed the renaming and reorganization of the National Coast Watch Council (NCWC) to the National Maritime Council (NMC). The body is tasked to formulate policies and strategies to ensure a unified, coordinated and effective governance framework for the country's maritime security and domain awareness.

The Chief Executive tasked the NMC, chaired by Bersamin, to formulate and issue guidelines for the effective implementation of EO 57 within 60 days from its effectivity.

Others who comprise the NMC are the secretaries of the Department of National Defense (DND), National Security Adviser (National Security Council), Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Energy (DoE), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

The secretaries of the Department of Finance (DoF), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Department of Transportation (DoTr) are also members of the NMC along with the solicitor general, and the director general of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA).

The President also renamed the NCWC Secretariat to the Presidential Office for Maritime Concerns (POMC) — tasked to provide consultative, research, administrative and technical services to the NMC and ensure the efficient and effective implementation of the policies of the council, among other functions.

The Presidential Assistant for Maritime Concerns (PAMC), on the other hand, was directed to report directly to the President on critical and urgent matters and issues affecting the country's maritime security and domain awareness while the National Maritime Center (formerly the National Coast Watch Center) was tasked to implement and coordinate maritime security operations, among others, according to EO 57.

The National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS), which was created through EO 94 (s. 2016) to orchestrate, synchronize and operationalize the employment of the capabilities of different agencies for a unified actions in the WPS, will be attached to the NMC.

EO 57 was crafted around the same time Marcos held "exhaustive consultations" with the government's security and defense clusters to come up with a strategy regarding the Philippines' long-standing territorial dispute with China in the WPS and Beijing's perceived bullying in the waterway.

Last week, the President vowed to mount a "proportionate, deliberate and reasonable" response to the "unabating, and illegal, coercive, aggressive and dangerous attacks" by the China Coast Guard (CCG) and the Chinese maritime militia in the WPS.

He said the Philippines is in "constant communication" with allies, partners, and friends in the international community.

"They have offered to help us on what the Philippines requires to protect and secure our sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction while ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific," the President said.

"I have given them our requirements and we have been assured that they will be addressed," he added.

The President also reiterated that while the country seeks no conflict with any foreign entity, the Filipinos "will not be cowed into silence, submission, or subservience."

The present leadership's more aggressive stance in connection with the WPS comes following the string of provocations and harassments from the CCG and Chinese maritime militia against Filipino vessels, the latest being the water cannon attack against a Philippine supply vessel en route to Ayungin Shoal causing "heavy damage" to the ship last March 23.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, including maritime features in the WPS that are well within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague dismissed China's sweeping historical claims to the waterway, saying they had no legal bases, but Beijing has refused to acknowledge it.

Chinese isolation

The DND earlier said that Chinese statement claiming that the Philippines is straying down a "dangerous path" in the WPS highlights their isolation.

"China's defense ministry statement clearly reflects their isolation from the rest of the world on their illegal and uncivilized activities in the West Philippine Sea," DND's Public Affairs chief Arsenio Andolong said.

Andolong said this also shows the inability of the Chinese government to conduct open, transparent, and legal negotiations.

"Their repertoire consists only of patronizing and, failing that, intimidating smaller countries," he said, adding that the whole world had seen and knows that the Filipino people are not the aggressors.

"We will never seek a fight or trouble. Neither will we be cowed into silence, submission, or subservience," Andolong said. "We do not yield. We are Filipinos."

Deescalate tensions

House of Representatives Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan said the Philippines and China should "exhaust all diplomatic avenues to deescalate the situation."

Libanan is worried that international news reports of worsening tensions might dampen the Philippines' efforts to attract additional foreign direct investments and create jobs.

"We are very concerned that prospective foreign investors might misperceive and misunderstand the tensions as a looming security risk," Libanan said in a statement.

Libanan said President Marcos himself has been visiting other countries "precisely to encourage their corporations to put up factories in the Philippines."

He cited the need for the Marcos administration "to reassure potential foreign investors that regardless of the maritime dispute, the Philippines remains highly conducive to profitable business activities."

"We must stress that despite the tensions, the Philippines offers a stable, peaceful and safe haven for the gainful production of goods and services by foreign investors," Libanan said.

The DND on Friday said it will not yield to China's dictated terms prohibiting the Philippine government from soliciting foreign support to defend in a legitimate manner the country's sovereign rights and territorial integrity in the WPS.

China last week said US backing of the Philippines in the South China Sea has provoked confrontation and undermined regional peace and stability.

It said the "US is in no position to interfere and the military cooperation between the US and the Philippines must not harm China's sovereign and maritime rights and interest."

Meanwhile, Sen. Ana Theresia "Risa" Hontiveros called on the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to expedite the filing of a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly that would call on China to stop its "blatant violence" in Philippine waters.

"This is urgent," the senator said in a statement on March 27. She urged China to "stop behaving like a criminal."

WITH PHILIPPINE NEWS AGENCY