MANILA: The Philippine government accused China on Saturday of firing flares at one of its aircraft as it flew patrols over the South China Sea this month.
Beijing claims most of the strategic waterway and has been involved in tense maritime confrontations with Manila in recent months, sparking fears of armed conflict that could draw in the United States, a Filipino military ally.
A Chinese fighter jet “engaged in irresponsible and dangerous maneuvers” on August 19 as the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) plane made a “maritime domain awareness flight” near Scarborough Shoal, the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said.
The unprovoked Chinese “harassment” included “deploying flares multiple times at a dangerously close distance of approximately 15 meters from the BFAR Grand Caravan aircraft,” the task force added in a statement.
Flares were also launched near the same plane from the China-held Subi Reef on August 22 as the patrol craft was “monitoring and intercepting poachers encroaching upon the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone and the territorial seas” of the Philippines, it added.
Flares are usually employed by military aircraft as decoys to protect them from missiles, but also for illumination.
China’s foreign ministry said on Friday that two Philippine military aircraft flew into its airspace over Subi Reef, which Manila also claims, on August 22.
The Chinese side undertook “necessary countermeasures in accordance with the law, in order to protect its own sovereignty and security,” it said in a statement.
The Philippine government said the BFAR plane was a civilian Cessna aircraft.
The Chinese statement did not mention any August 19 incident over Scarborough Shoal, which China seized from the Philippines at the end of a 2012 standoff.
The Scarborough Shoal incident occurred hours after Philippine and Chinese coast guard vessels collided near Sabina Shoal, with the Filipino side reporting structural damage on both of its patrol ships.
The shoal is located 140 kilometers (86 miles) west of the Philippine island of Palawan and about 1,200 kilometers from Hainan island, the nearest Chinese landmass.
The Philippines has also accused a Chinese air force plane of making a “dangerous maneuver” and dropping flares in the path of a Filipino air force plane that was patrolling over Scarborough on August 10.
In June, the Philippine military said one of its sailors lost a thumb in a confrontation off Second Thomas Shoal when the Chinese coast guard, wielding sticks, knives and an axe, also confiscated or destroyed Philippine equipment including guns.
Beijing has blamed the escalation on Manila and maintains its actions to protect its claims are legal and proportional.
It has continued to press its claims to almost the entire South China Sea despite an international tribunal ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
Manila on Saturday urged Beijing to “immediately cease all provocative and dangerous actions that threaten the safety of Philippine vessels and aircraft engaged in legitimate and regular activities within Philippine territory and Exclusive Economic Zone,” as well as freedom of navigation and overflights.
“Such actions undermine regional peace and security, and further erode the image of the PRC (People’s Republic of China) with the international community,” the task force statement said.
Philippines says China fired flares at its South China Sea plane
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Philippines says China fired flares at its South China Sea plane
- Flares were also launched near the same plane from the China-held Subi Reef on August 22
Venezuela parliament unanimously approves amnesty law
CARACAS: Venezuela’s National Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved a long-awaited amnesty law that could free hundreds of political prisoners jailed for being government detractors.
But the law excludes those who have been prosecuted or convicted of promoting military action against the country — which could include opposition leaders like Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has been accused by the ruling party of calling for international intervention like the one that ousted former president Nicolas Maduro.
The bill now goes before interim president Delcy Rodriguez, who pushed for the legislation under pressure from Washington, after she rose to power following Maduro’s capture during a US military raid on January 3.
The law is meant to apply retroactively to 1999 — including the coup against previous leader Hugo Chavez, the 2002 oil strike, and the 2024 riots against Maduro’s disputed reelection — giving hope to families that loved ones will finally come home.
Some fear, however, the law could be used by the government to pardon its own and selectively deny freedom to real prisoners of conscience.
Article 9 of the bill lists those excluded from amnesty as “persons who are being prosecuted or may be convicted for promoting, instigating, soliciting, invoking, favoring, facilitating, financing or participating in armed actions or the use of force against the people, sovereignty, and territorial integrity” of Venezuela “by foreign states, corporations or individuals.”
Venezuela’s National Assembly had delayed several sittings meant to pass the amnesty bill.
“The scope of the law must be restricted to victims of human rights violations and expressly exclude those accused of serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity, including state, paramilitary and non-state actors,” UN human rights experts said in a statement from Geneva Thursday.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Venezuelans have been jailed in recent years over plots, real or imagined, to overthrow the government of Rodriguez’s predecessor and former boss Maduro, who was in the end toppled in the deadly US military raid.
Family members have reported torture, maltreatment and untreated health problems among the inmates.
The NGO Foro Penal says about 450 prisoners have been released since Maduro’s ouster, but more than 600 others remain behind bars.
Family members have been clamoring for their release for weeks, holding vigils outside prisons.
One small group, in the capital Caracas, staged a nearly weeklong hunger strike which ended Thursday.
“The National Assembly has the opportunity to show whether there truly is a genuine will for national reconciliation,” Foro Penal director Gonzalo Himiob wrote on X Thursday ahead of the vote.
On Wednesday, the chief of the US military command responsible for strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats off South America held talks in Caracas with Rodriguez and top ministers Vladimir Padrino and Diosdado Cabello .
All three were staunch Maduro backers who for years echoed his “anti-imperialist” rhetoric.
Rodriguez’s interim government has been governing with US President Donald Trump’s consent, provided she grants access to Venezuela’s vast oil resources.
