Philippine military chief Romeo Brawner said the grounded warship is a commissioned vessel of the Philippine navy so it is authorised to have weapons.
“We have the right to defend ourselves,” Brawner said, adding the Philippines will continue to assert its sovereignty in the area.
The Second Thomas Shoal is located inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone and China has for years challenged the country’s deployment of a small contingent of marines there aboard a rusty former US ship.
The Sierra Madre was intentionally grounded on the shoal by the Philippines in 1999, as a means of asserting what it says is its sovereignty over the area. China has been accused by Manila of repeated aggressive conduct in disrupting resupply missions to the troops.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea as its territory, deploying an armada of coastguard vessels, some more than 1,000km away from its mainland. China has maintained its responses have been appropriate in the face of Philippine encroachment.
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