Marcos calls China's block on a navy medevac at Ayungin Shoal a new phase of escalation

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Sunday that China's obstruction of a military medical evacuation from Second Thomas Shoal, which Manila calls Ayungin Shoal, appeared to mark a new phase of escalation in the South China Sea. Speaking at a Kapihan media interview during a working visit to Singapore, he said the incident would be taken up in discussions on the provisional understanding that Manila and Beijing reached in July 2024 to manage rotation and resupply missions to the grounded BRP Sierra Madre, the navy ship that serves as a Philippine military outpost on the shoal.

Marcos rejected Beijing's apparent position that Philippine vessels must seek its permission before operating around the shoal, insisting that no such requirement exists because the waters belong to the Philippines. He questioned why Chinese ships would interfere with an operation meant only to collect a sick sailor, noting that even in wartime the Red Cross is allowed through. He said he had not yet weighed what the episode means for negotiations on a South China Sea code of conduct.

The evacuation took place on 8 October. According to the Philippine Coast Guard, China Coast Guard vessel 5306 shadowed the coast guard ship BRP Cabra and switched on its water cannon about 17 kilometres north of the shoal, closing from about 2.4 kilometres to roughly 366 metres. The operation to retrieve the Philippine Navy sailor stationed aboard the Sierra Madre was delayed for nearly 10 hours, and the sailor was flown by helicopter to Puerto Princesa City for treatment the following morning.

The obstruction came less than two weeks after the Armed Forces of the Philippines suspended a rotation and resupply mission to the Sierra Madre on 24 September amid Chinese interference, a move that drew condemnation from the United States Embassy in Manila. Philippine military officials said Chinese vessels had challenged that mission farther from the shoal than in earlier operations. The Department of Foreign Affairs maintains that the 2024 arrangement involves only an exchange of information and does not oblige Manila to ask China's approval to supply its outpost.

In a separate interview with The Straits Times during the same five-day visit, Marcos denied that the Philippines had acted aggressively toward China. He said the country had never initiated any conflict and was only defending its territory and sovereign rights, adding that the Philippines was where aggression was felt more than anywhere else in the region and that it did not come from Manila.

Marcos also said he remained open to joint oil exploration with China, provided the partnership stayed purely commercial and set aside the question of which country owns which waters. The Department of Foreign Affairs says Manila lodged 296 diplomatic protests against China from 2022 to 2026, including 39 so far this year.

Ayungin Shoal is a low-tide elevation about 194 kilometres west of Palawan, inside the Philippines' exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. China claims most of the South China Sea and has refused to recognise a 2016 arbitral ruling that found its sweeping claims had no legal basis.

By putting the medevac on the agenda of the provisional-understanding talks, Marcos signalled that Manila now treats the two-year-old arrangement as under strain after a run of contested missions to its most exposed military outpost since late September.