President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. wants to find out the full extent of operations of five Chinese nationals, who were arrested by authorities for allegedly conducting spying activities.

In an interview with Palace reporters in Pasay City Friday, Marcos said he was ''disturbed ''by the latest spying incidents.

"That’s why we arrested them because of course we are very disturbed by anyone conducting such espionage operations against our military," Marcos said.

Last Thursday, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) announced the arrest of the five Chinese nationals for supposedly setting up closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in Palawan to monitor Philippine Coast Guard ships (PCG), which were deployed in the West Philippine Sea.

The PCG ships were deployed to monitor the Chinese Coast Guards (CCG) vessels, which remain within the WPS.

"We are still ? the investigative services are still developing more information to see exactly what these five have been ? what operations they have been doing while they have been here in the Philippines," Marcos said.

"Because some of them have already stayed in the country for a long time and have married Filipinas. They are sleeper [agents]...And maybe once we talk to them, they can tell us, who we can approach explain what they were doing," he added. DMS