Tolentino favors joint US-PH patrols in WPS

SEN. Francis Tolentino voiced support for multilateral maritime security cooperation with the United States and neighboring Southeast Asian countries amid the Philippines' territorial dispute with China in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

"I have been espousing that joint Philippine-US Coast Guard patrol, but we might even extend that to being a multilateral patrol to include other Asean claimants," Tolentino said on Wednesday in a television interview, in connection with the January 9 incident in the Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal) wherein China's Coast Guard allegedly harassed a group of Filipino fishermen.