Police officers watch in the background as protest leader Elly Pamatong burns a mock Chinese flag during a brief Fourth-of-July protest at the US Embassy on Monday July 4, 2011 to call for US support in the Philippines' claim of the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea. The Spratlys, a chain of barren, largely uninhabited islands, reefs and banks in the South China Sea are claimed wholly by China, Taiwan and Vietnam and partly by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. The islands are believed to be atop vast oil and gas deposits.
A group calling themselves the Discovery Crusade of the Philippines, Inc. led by Atty. Elly Pamatong, burned 2 Chinese flags in front of the US Embassy Monday as a declaration of war against China.
Pamatong said that the Philippines owns the Spratlys islands and not China.
He said that Filipinos should kidnap the Chinese residing in the country so that the Chinese currently occupying the contested Spratlys island will leave.
Pamatong, a self-proclaimed international lawyer, previously sued Pope Benedict XVI and Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales for swindling, teaching immoral doctrines and public disorder.
He is best known for scattering spikes on EDSA in 2004, which damaged a hundred cars, after he was declared a nuisance candidate in the 2004 presidential election.
Atty. Ely Pamatong is one of the most influential personalities in the dangerous islands of Mindanao - Southernmost Philippines which is a haven of the still living Abu Sayaff Group – the arm of the international terrorist Bin Laden.
Filipino –Americans s slate protests vs China around USA
Filipino-Americans are set to picket the consular offices of China in five US cities at noon on July 8 to protest that country’s construction of an oil rig in the Spratlys scheduled this month.
The demonstrations were called by US Pinoys for Good Governance (USP4GG), a national organization headed by Loida Nicolas-Lewis and Rodel Rodis that includes Filipino-American business, political and community leaders.
The protests will be held in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco and seek to expose China’s abrogation of its pledge to the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) to resolve sovereignty issues peacefully through negotiations, USP4GG said in a press release.
It said that under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (Unclos), a nation owns the oil, mineral and other resources within a 200-mile radius from its land mass.
With its superior military force, China appears determined to begin construction of a $30-billion oil rig this month approximately 125 miles from Palawan, well within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), USP4GG said.
On May 27, the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs conveyed its concerns to the Chinese government after the latter’s state media reported on Beijing’s planned installation of its most advanced oil rig in the West Philippine Sea in July.
According to the Xinhua report, “CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corp.) plans to invest 200 billion yuan ($30 billion) and drill 800 deep water wells, which they expect to have an output of 500 million barrels of oil by 2020.” Target production is approximately $50 billion per year.
“We call on global Filipinos and Philippine organizations throughout the world to stand up to the China bully and protest its impending invasion of the Philippines by demonstrating in front of consular offices of China throughout the world,” Lewis said.
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