President Aquino will discuss with visiting Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie on Monday the need to enforce the implementing guidelines of the Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to prevent the conflict.

Mr. Aquino said the enforcement of the Code of Conduct—forged between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2002—would stop, or at the least reduce, incidents in the South China Sea involving the claimant-countries.

“We have long pushed for the implementation of the Code of Conduct. Let’s talk, instead of these incidents taking place. Of course, it’s in the interest of maintaining good bilateral relations to express our sentiments and to ask them how we should look at these incidents. The endpoint, hopefully, would be to reduce or to put an end to these incidents because if not, there will really be conflict,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chinese counterparts of Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and Armed Forces Chief of Staff Eduardo Oban Jr. have refrained from saying anything about the agenda they would be tackling during their meeting on Monday, Defense spokesman Eduardo Batac said.

“We are restricted from giving information outside of what they authorized to be released. We have to respect the request of the Chinese, we will only make public matters they want to be released,” Batac said.

He said their trip  is “basically a goodwill visit” and they can only hope that the result of the meeting will be productive on both sides.

Col. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos Jr., military public affairs chief, also said they have no idea about the issues both parties were going to tackle.

“The Armed Forces is looking forward to a fruitful and productive interaction with the Chinese defense officials on matters pertaining to military affairs,” Burgos merely said.

When asked, Mr. Aquino said the Armed Forces has not identified the origin of the two foreign fighter jets that intruded into Philippine airspace recently. “Based on the latest reports we received, we could not determine who they were,” he said.

He also said “there are many incidents happening in Reed Bank and in the disputed portion of the Spratlys” where the other party is of undetermined origin. He cited as an example a submarine sighted by a Philippine Air Force plane, but submerged before the plane could come close enough to identify it.

In the case of the Reed Bank incident, however, the President said, “that was clearly Chinese.”

At the Asean summit in Jakarta earlier this month, Mr. Aquino called for the effective and full implementation of the Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which remains unimplemented as it neared its 10th anniversary. --With Z. Solmerin