The Philippine government voiced serious concern on Saturday following China’s arrest of three Filipino nationals on espionage charges, calling the allegations “unfounded” and suggesting the detentions may be retaliatory.
According to China’s state-run China Daily, the three Filipinos were accused of working for Philippine intelligence and gathering classified information on China’s military. The report, citing state security officials, claimed the suspects had confessed.
But Manila pushed back strongly. The National Security Council (NSC) denied the accusations, describing the individuals as civilians and former scholars who had traveled to China through a government exchange program between Palawan and China’s Hainan province.
“They are ordinary Filipino citizens with no military training who went to China at the invitation of the Chinese government to study,” said NSC spokesperson Jonathan Malaya. “They were vetted by Chinese authorities before their arrival and have no criminal records.”
The Chinese embassy in Manila has not yet responded to requests for comment.
Hainan and Palawan both face the disputed South China Sea, a region of ongoing tensions where China and the Philippines have clashed repeatedly over maritime claims in recent years.
Malaya hinted the arrests could be a tit-for-tat move: “These detentions appear to be retaliation for the Philippine government’s legitimate arrests of Chinese operatives engaged in espionage on our soil.”
In the past three months, Philippine authorities have detained at least 12 Chinese nationals suspected of spying, accusing them of attempting to obtain sensitive data on military facilities and critical infrastructure.
China continues to assert sweeping territorial claims across the South China Sea, overlapping with the exclusive economic zones of several Southeast Asian nations, including the Philippines. A 2016 international tribunal ruling invalidated China’s claims under international law, but Beijing has refused to recognise the verdict.
