(L-R) Philippine Marine Corps and exercise director Brigadier General Vicente Blanco, Philippine Marine Corps commandant Major-General Arturo Rojas, US Marines exercise representative Colonel Stuart Glenn, and Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force Major-General Hajime Kitajima pose during a press conference after the opening ceremony of the Kamandag 2024 joint military exercise at the Philippine Marines officers club at Fort Bonifacio in Manila on October 15, 2024. Ted Aljibe, AFP  MANILA (UPDATED) — Thousands of US and Filipino marines launched 10 days of joint exercises in the northern and western Philippines on Tuesday, a day after China held huge drills around Taiwan.

The annual Kamandag, or Venom, exercises are focused on defending the north coast of the Philippine's main island of Luzon, which lies about 800 kilometers  from self-ruled Taiwan.

Beijing considers Taiwan part of its territory and has vowed it will never rule out using force to take it, calling Monday's drills a "stern warning" to "separatist" forces on the island.

China says launches military drills around Taiwan

The joint US-Filipino exercises come amid a series of escalating confrontations between China and the Philippines over reefs and waters in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.

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Philippine Marine Corps commandant Major-General Arturo Rojas stressed at Tuesday's opening ceremony in Manila that Kamandag was long planned and had "nothing to do with whatever is happening in the region".

The drills' primary focus will be live-fire exercises along Luzon's north coast, while other activities will be conducted on tiny Philippine islands between Luzon and Taiwan.

"It's a coastal defense doctrine. The doctrine says that a would-be aggressor might be directed towards our territory," Filipino exercise director Brigadier-General Vicente Blanco told reporters.

"We are not exercising to join the fight (over Taiwan)," he added.

US Marines representative Colonel Stuart Glenn said the exercises were aimed at helping the United States and its allies respond to "any crisis or contingencies".

The western Philippine island of Palawan, facing the disputed South China Sea, will also host part of the drills.

The US and Philippines are fielding just over a thousand participants each, while smaller numbers of Australian, British, Japanese and South Korean forces are also taking part.

An amphibious landing and training on how to defend against chemical and biological warfare were also among the activities planned, according to a press kit.

The 2024 exercises will see the addition of three new observer nations, namely France, Thailand, and Indonesia.

“This is particularly important as we face both traditional and non-traditional threats in the region, from potential armed conflicts to national disasters,” Rojas said. 

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Blanco added that the exercises could potentially be used to facilitate the evacuation of Filipinos from Taiwan in the event of a conflict crisis.

“Any crisis in Taiwan would involve our concern for our OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) in Taiwan. And I think it’s more about preparing our forces for whenever there will be a repatriation of our OFWs. We are not exercising to join the fight if there is any fight in that part of the region,” he said.

Some 150,000 Filipinos were working in Taiwan as of October 2023, according to the island's labor ministry.

As the war games began Tuesday, the Philippine government announced that one of its civilian patrol vessels had sustained minor damage on October 11 when it was "deliberately sideswiped" by a "Chinese Maritime Militia" vessel

Chinese militia vessel sideswipes BFAR ship near Pag-asa Island

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources said the collision, which dented the front right section of the BRP Datu Cabaylo, took place about 9.3 kilometers from Pag-asa, a Philippine-garrisoned island in the Spratly group.

Prior to the collision, the Chinese vessel also "conducted dangerous manoeuvres and tried to block the path" of the Filipino boat, which was conducting routine patrol, the bureau said.

The crew were unhurt and later sailed the vessel to Pag-asa and completed their routine maritime patrol mission, the statement said.

"What they did to us is against international law and violates our sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea," Nazario Briguera, the spokesman for the fisheries bureau, told AFP, using Manila's term for its claimed sections of the South China Sea.

He said the Datu Cabaylo was the third vessel owned by the bureau that was damaged in clashes with Chinese vessels this year.

Beijing has for years sought to expand its presence in contested areas of the sea, brushing aside an international ruling that its claim to most of the waterway has no legal basis.

China has deployed military and coast guard vessels in recent months in a bid to eject the Philippines from a trio of other strategically important reefs and islands in the South China Sea.

© Agence France-Presse