(UPDATE) PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday warned that the potential for outright conflict between the Philippines and China over their territorial dispute in the South China Sea "is much higher now than it was before."

"We worry in the Philippines because it could come from, not a strategic decision by anyone saying, 'OK, we're going to war,' but just by some servicemen making a mistake, or some action that's misunderstood," the President said in an interview with Australian journalist Sarah Ferguson on the sidelines of the Asean-Australia Special Summit in Melbourne. "That's why the ongoing attempt is always to try and lower the temperature down [when] the rhetoric is up."

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