Manila, Jan 12: Imee Marcos, a powerful Philippine senator and sister of President Ferdinand Marcos, is pressing his administration to answer questions about a large shipment of fuel from a military facility in Hawaii to a former U.S. naval base near Manila.
This week, Sen. Marcos questioned the Department of National Defense about the shipment of 39 million gallons of fuel to the site of the former U.S. Navy base at Subic Bay. She alluded to whether this could be tied to American preparations for a potential war with China.
On Wednesday, Sen. Marcos, who chairs the Philippine Senate’s foreign relations committee, asked for a detailed explanation from the government and the military about the shipment.
The “inexplicable silence” of the Philippine and U.S. governments before a tanker set sail from Hawaii to the Philippines with the cargo of fuel has “raised suspicions about the pre-positioning of military supplies in the country amid predictions of an eventual war between China and the U.S. over Taiwan,” Sen. Marcos said in a statement.
The senator last year clashed with her younger brother’s administration, among other issues, over its controversial decision to expand a bilateral pact to allow U.S. forces greater access to military bases in the Philippines.
The two longtime defense allies struck the deal amid growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan, and between Manila and Beijing over their territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
“The shipment of fuel from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, USA, to a storage facility in the Subic Bay Freeport in the Philippines via the commercial tanker Yosemite Trader is part of regular commercial transactions between the U.S. government and Philippine companies,” defense department spokesman Arsenio Andolong said in a statement Thursday.