MANILA: President Ferdinand Marcos (pic) said Thursday (March 28) the Philippines will not be "cowed into silence" by Beijing after confrontations in the South China Sea that injured Filipino troops and damaged vessels.

"We seek no conflict with any nation, more so nations that purport and claim to be our friends but we will not be cowed into silence, submission, or subservience," Marcos said in a statement.

He said the Philippines would respond with a "countermeasure package that is proportionate, deliberate, and reasonable in the face of the open, unabating, and illegal, coercive, aggressive, and dangerous attacks by agents of the China Coast Guard and the Chinese Maritime Militia".

"Filipinos do not yield," Marcos said.

Marcos's remarks followed the latest clashes in the disputed waterway, during which the China Coast Guard fired water cannon at a Philippine vessel carrying supplies for troops garrisoned on a remote reef.

The incident last Saturday left three Filipino navy personnel injured and caused severe damage to their supply vessel, Manila said previously.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, brushing off rival claims from other countries, including the Philippines, and an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis. - AFP