Philippines Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana (pictured above left) on Thursday said it was unlikely that the country would allow the United States to use the country as a platform to launch patrols in the South China Sea. Lorenzana said the country’s president, Rodrigo Duterte, was not likely to host any US ships or aircraft “to avoid any provocative actions” that could escalate tensions in the South China Sea, AP reported.

US ships and aircraft can use bases in Guam and Japan to launch patrols into the Sea, Lorenzana said. “We’ll avoid that [letting the US use the Philippine territory] for now,” he said. US officials did not issue an immediate statement on Lorenzana’s remarks. During former president Benigno Aquino III’s tenure, some US ships and aircraft stopped at ports in the country on their way to conducting patrols in the South China Sea.

In July, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favour of the Philippines and said China had no legal basis to claim ‘historic rights’ over the South China Sea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration accused the country of breaching the sovereign rights of the Philippines by exploring resources near the Reed Bank. However, China dubbed the verdict “ill-founded”. Beijing has also said that its “territorial sovereignty and marine rights” in the seas will not be affected by the verdict.

The remarks by Lorenzana come even as the nation under Duterte’s administration continues to deepen its ties with Beijing at the cost of its longtime relations with the US. In October, Duterte told outgoing US President Barack Obama to “go to hell”, saying the US had refused to sell weapons to the Philippines. Duterte added that at some point, he will “break up with America”.

Earlier that month, the president had warned Obama to not challenge him over the alleged “extrajudicial killings” of drug dealers in the country and called him a “son of a bitch”.