MANILA: The Philippines and United States militaries have sailed together in the South China Sea for a seventh time to boost interoperability between the two sides, Manila’s armed forces said on Thursday.
The exercises, held on Wednesday in waters off the provinces of Occidental Mindoro and Zambales and away from contested features, included joint operations near shorelines as well as fire support.
“The MCA (maritime cooperative activity) is a demonstration of both nations’ resolve to deepen cooperation and enhance interoperability in line with international law,” the Philippine armed forces said in a statement.
The joint sail also showcased the Philippine vessel Miguel Malvar, a 118-meter guided missile frigate commissioned last month. It is one of two corvettes built by South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries under the Philippines’ military modernization program.
Military engagements between the treaty allies have soared under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has pivoted closer to Washington in response to China’s growing presence in the South China Sea.
China claims sovereignty over nearly all the South China Sea, including parts of the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

WELLINGTON: New Zealand legislators voted Thursday to enact record suspensions from Parliament for three lawmakers who performed a Maori haka to protest a proposed law.

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke received a seven-day ban and the leaders of her political party, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, were barred for 21 days. Three days had been the longest ban for a lawmaker from New Zealand’s Parliament before.

The lawmakers from Te Pati Maori, the Maori Party, performed the haka, a chanting dance of challenge, last November to oppose a widely unpopular bill, now defeated, that they said would reverse Indigenous rights.

But the protest drew global headlines and provoked months of fraught debate among lawmakers about what the consequences for the lawmakers’ actions should be and whether New Zealand’s Parliament welcomed or valued Maori culture — or felt threatened by it.

A committee of the lawmakers’ peers in April recommended the lengthy punishments in a report that said the lawmakers were not being punished for the haka itself, but for striding across the floor of the debating chamber toward their opponents while they did it. Maipi-Clarke Thursday rejected that, citing other instances where legislators have left their seats and approached their opponents without sanction.

It was expected that the suspensions would be approved, because government parties have more seats in Parliament than the opposition and had the necessary votes to affirm them. But the punishment was so severe that Parliament Speaker Gerry Brownlee in April ordered a free-ranging debate among lawmakers and urged them to attempt to reach a consensus on what repercussions were appropriate.

No such accord was reached Thursday. During hours of at times emotional speeches, government lawmakers rejected opposition proposals for lighter sanctions.

There were suggestions that opposition lawmakers might extend the debate for days or even longer through filibuster-style speeches, but with the outcome already certain and no one’s mind changed, all lawmakers agreed that the debate should end.