By Elena Aben

There is nothing that the Philippines can do for now to stop China’s militarization and construction of permanent facilities in parts of the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), foreign affairs secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. admitted on Friday, December 16.

“We cannot, we cannot stop China at this point in time and say do not put that up,” Yasay said in a press briefing in Singapore.

But he stressed that the Philippines “will continue to pursue peaceful means at which all of these can be prevented.”

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Yasay said the issue about China’s militarization and construction of permanent facilities in territories disputed with the Philippines has already been passed upon by the U.N. arbitral tribunal, which handed down the verdict favoring the Philippines.

“And on that basis, in fact, we will move forward in the future insofar as pursuing the enforcement of the decision of the arbitral tribunal on the basis of that findings and conclusions,” he said.

But with the Philippines having bilateral engagements with China, Yasay said “we want to make sure that there will be no further actions that will heighten the tensions between the two countries, particularly in the Scarborough Shoal.”

“We will continue to engage China insofar as the other aspects of our relationship is concerned—trade, investment, people-to-people contact, cooperation, infrastructure development and other such assistance that will have no strings attached.

“We feel that this is necessary also as part of a confidence building measure so that we can later on go back into the issue of our dispute with the South China Sea, through peaceful resolution,” the foreign affairs secretary said.

In the meantime, Yasay said, the Philippines has “placed the issue at the back burner without compromising our rights as declared by the arbitral tribunal insofar its decision of July 12, 2016 is concerned.”

Yasay nonetheless acknowledged that other countries will have special concerns about China’s activities that they would like to protect such as the freedom of navigation and overflight.

“The United States is concerned about this, Japan is concerned about this, the European Union is concerned about this. Let them take whatever action is necessary in the pursuit of their national interest is concerned and we will leave it at that,” he said.