MANILA: The Philippine government said on Tuesday (Aug 13) it had filed a diplomatic protest against Beijing after Chinese jets flew dangerously close and fired a volley of flares in the path of a Philippine Air Force patrol plane over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea. The Chinese air force jets’ hostile actions against the Philippine military’s NC-212i light transport plane on Thursday over the Scarborough Shoal was the first such aerial encounter since high-seas hostilities between