Philippine coastguard hailed as ‘vigilant stewards’ against China - but why no new ships?

“Be assured you are never alone in carrying the weight of this mission,” Marcos Jnr promised the PCG, without naming China.

“This administration reaffirms its support to efforts that will improve your fleet and our air assets… to maritime domain awareness, weapons capability, and necessary infrastructure development. This will boost your capacity to respond to any operations,” he added.

His commitment, however, would not be backed by funding for the PCG for next year, with the agency unable to acquire new vessels to patrol the country’s 37 million km coastline.