Killing of Pinoy at sea an act of war – Marcos

The “willful” killing of any Filipino, whether military or civilian, in the country’s sovereign waters will be close to an “act of war,” and the Philippines and its security allies will act accordingly, President Marcos said last night.

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It was Marcos’ reply to a question on what he would deem to be “crossing the red line” amid incidents of the China Coast Guard blasting Philippine vessels with water cannons in the West Philippine Sea.

“If a Filipino citizen was killed by a willful act, that is very close to what we define as an act of war,” Marcos replied during the brief Q&A at the end of his keynote speech at the 21st International Institute for Strategic Studies-ShangriLa Dialogue.

“We would have crossed the Rubicon. Is that the red line? Almost certainly it’s going to be a red line,” he said.

Marcos gave a similar response when asked at a forum hosted by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines in April in Manila what could trigger the country’s Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States.

In his speech here, Marcos denounced illegal, coercive and aggressive actions in the South China Sea.