Marcos: China laser not enough to activate US defense pact

The Philippine president said Saturday the Chinese coast guard’s use of military-grade laser that briefly blinded some of the crew aboard a Philippine patrol vessel in the disputed South China Sea was not enough for him to invoke a mutual defense treaty with the United States, but warned that such aggression should stop.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told a news conference he also reminded China’s ambassador to Manila that escalating aggression and incursions into Philippine waters by Beijing’s coast guard, navy and government-backed civilian fishing fleets violate an agreement he struck with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month.
“Despite the fact that it was a military-grade laser that was pointed at our coast guard, I do not think that that is sufficient for it to trigger the Mutual Defense Treaty,” Marcos said in his first public remarks about the Feb. 6 incident involving two Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.
Responding to a question, Marcos said he was concerned that activating the 1951 treaty would ratchet up regional tensions.
Marcos spoke to reporters in the northern resort city of Baguio where he delivered a speech before cadets and former graduates of the Philippine Military Academy and repeated a vow to defend the country’s territory amid a new territorial spat with China.