Phl, Viet booters battle in Spratlys

MANILA, Philippines - It’s not the World Cup, but this football game is as important as any match to be played in Brazil starting next week.

The Philippines and Vietnam have sealed a deal to hold a friendship football game this weekend in one of the hotly contested Spratly islands.

Filipino and Vietnamese troops deployed in the Vietnamese-occupied Southwest Cay or Pugad Island will play the game aimed at further improving relations between the armed forces of the two claimant countries.

Earlier, there were proposals to involve all claimant countries, but this did not push through due to the developing crisis in the region.

Pugad is 1.75 nautical miles from the Philippine naval detachment on Parola Island (Northwest Cay) and it used to be under the control of Filipino troops. Vietnamese troops occupied the island after Filipino soldiers left the area for Parola in 1975.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping maritime claims over the Spratlys archipelago, which is being claimed wholly by China.

The holding of the game comes at a time when Vietnam and the Philippines are both on the receiving end of China’s increased aggressiveness in the disputed region.

Since last year, China has been enforcing its territorial stake in the region, spanning from its coastline in Hainan down to the waters of Brunei and Malaysia and cutting through the territorial waters of the Philippines and Vietnam.

Vietnam is currently engaged in a direct, tense maritime row with China in the Paracel Group of Islands, after Beijing put a giant oil rig platform within Hanoi’s 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone last month.

Maritime tension is now mounting in the Paracels after a Chinese vessel rammed a Vietnamese fishing boat in a recent maritime encounter in the region.

Aside from football, other games lined up this weekend are tug-of-war, basketball and volleyball.

Pugad is now a highly developed Vietnamese civilian-military community. It will also host a cultural presentation in line with an earlier memorandum of agreement signed by the two countries for the holding of the friendship game.

“Friendship game will be held to foster camaraderie and good working relations with other military forces,” a military official said.