The Philippines denied on Monday that China had a “temporary special arrangement” with Manila to allow the delivery of supplies to Philippine troops occupying a disputed South China Sea reef, calling it “a figment of imagination.” The Chinese Coast Guard said on Saturday it had temporarily allowed the Philippines to provide food and water to soldiers stationed at the BRP Sierra Madre, a vessel grounded in 1999 at the Second Thomas Shoal, 190 km off Palawan, to assert Manila’s territorial claims.

No reef 'arrangement' with China. (2024, January 30). BusinessWorld, p. S1/11.