Army Commanding General Lt. Gen. Romeo S. Brawner Jr.

MANILA — The joint maritime activity of the Philippines and three of its key allies in the West Philippine Sea was not met with a “combat patrol” from China.

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief General Romeo Brawner Jr. on Monday said the activity conducted with the United States, Australia, and Japan went unimpeded.

 “We heard that China will also conduct combat patrols, but from what we saw in the area’s monitoring, nothing like that happened,” Brawner said in Filipinon  in an interview in Camp Aguinaldo.

The Department of National Defense said the presence of two People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy warships with bow numbers 792 and 162 was monitored during the drills.

“While we were conducting our own exercises in the West Philippine Sea we only monitored the presence of two PLA Navy ships at wala namang ginawang mga combat patrol or mga exercises (and there are no combat patrols or exercises),” Brawner said.

China said it would conduct military “combat patrols” in the South China Sea on Sunday, the same day as joint drills by four countries, according to Agence France-Presse.

“All military activities that mess up the situation in the South China Sea and create hotspots are under control,” the Chinese army further said in a statement.

Beijing asserts sovereignty in the entire South China Sea, including most of the West Philippine Sea, even if such a claim has been effectively invalidated by a July 2016 international tribunal ruling that stemmed from a case filed by Manila in 2013.