Pamalakaya ridiculed Ferdinand Marcos’ establishment of the National Maritime Council in accordance with Executive Order No. 57 which was signed on March 25. The new council is supposed to strengthen the country’s defense of the Philippine sea.

According to Pamalakaya, the new council is inutile and only repeats the work of existing agencies such as the National Task Force-West Philippine Sea. It is also useless to the fishermen who continue to lose income and livelihoods due to the presence of fishing and warships of China, and other countries in Philippine waters.

Apart from China, the US has maintained the permanent presence of its warships and its allies in the West Philippine Sea and South China Sea masked as “joint patrols” and “free navigation operations.” It has freely launched aggressive military maneuvers in Philippine waters in the guise of wargames that are passed off as “assisting” the defense of the country’s security.

The creation of yet another useless agency reflects the state’s repeated failure to protect the WPS from foreigners, according to Pamalakaya. It says the order proves that the state has no concrete plan for the Philippines to reclaim full control of its sovereign waters, including all its resources.

The executive order was issued after a series of visits by high-ranking US officials to the country, including Anthony Blinken, the secretary of the US Department of State. The new council was formed a few weeks before the Balikatan 2024 wargame that is going to be held in Batanes and Palawan. The US and the Philippines tout the provocative wargame as the “biggest” in its history.