2 planes spotted near Kalayaan

MANILA, Philippines - The Navy spotted two unidentified aircraft flying at high speed and high altitude over the Pag-asa islands in Palawan on Thursday morning.

Naval Forces West reported the sighting to Navy headquarters in Manila.

Col. Edgard Arevalo, Navy spokesman on West Philippine Sea issues, said the aircraft were headed north from the southwest.

“It was too fast and too high for us to be able to really identify,” he said.

“We have limitations in our capability. If we had a space radar, not just navigational radar, perhaps we would have identified them.”

Arevalo said the aircraft were most probably of foreign origin, but that he cannot say for sure.

“The spotting or the sighting was also seen by our Air Force and Coast Guard in the area,” he said.

“By deduction, if these (aircraft) are ours, the Air Force should have known. But then, they themselves reported (the sighting) so probably, these are not ours. But we cannot be sure because the only basis for saying that (is) it was also reported by the Air Force.”

Pag-asa, the second largest island in the Spratly archipelago, is the subject of a territorial dispute among the Philippines and other nations.