Malacañang on Wednesday said it would look into the reports alleging that the Chinese have been dumping human feces and causing damage in the West Philippine Sea.
Geospatial imagery technology company Simularity recently released a report saying that Chinese ships have been dumping feces in the Spratly Islands, causing heightened concentrations of chlorophyll that could lead to intense reef damage.
The reef damage will“take decades to recover even with active mitigation.”
It was described by Liz Derr, founder of Simularity, as “so intense you can see it from space.”
“The damage to the reefs in the last five years is visible and dramatic,” she said during a forum celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Philippines’ arbitral tribunal victory against China.
“China, stop shitting on the Spratlys,” she added.
Palace spokesman Harry Roque said the government would first verify Simularity’s report before commenting on the matter.
“Responsable lang po tayo kasi dapat i-verify muna bago magputak,” Roque told reporters.
“Matagal na po tayong naninindigan na hindi basurahan at siyempre hindi kubeta ang Pilipinas. E tingnan muna natin kung mayroong katotohanan dahil kung wala naman e ‘di tayo mapapahiya,” he added.
Simularity’s report was called fake by Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin III on Twitter.
Locsin however falsely claimed that GMA News deleted its report on Simularity’s findings.
In response to Locsin, Simularity said the imagery and algorithm it used to identify chlorophyll a from satellite imagery in its report was “well researched and validated.”
The report is not fake, and GMA 7 has not deleted it. We encourage verification of our findings by the Philippine government, and stand by our research methods, sources, and findings. https://t.co/Qsq0UuPEkg
— Simularity (@simularity) July 13, 2021
“The report is not fake, and GMA 7 has not deleted it. We encourage verification of our findings by the Philippine government, and stand by our research methods, sources and findings,” it added.
It has been five years since the Philippines won a landmark legal victory at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which rejected China’s excessive claims in the West Philippine Sea under its nine-dash-line policy supposedly based on historical records from the Ming Dynasty.
But China said it “neither accepts nor recognizes” the Philippines’ legal victory. John Ezekiel J. Hirro