Eight Chinese vessels surrounded and fired water cannons at the boats chartered by the Philippine Navy and Philippine Coast Guard. - PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD
MANILA (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): The Philippines said it will never abandon its military outpost in the disputed South China Sea, after eight Chinese ships shadowed and fired water cannons at four smaller Philippine boats on a resupply mission over the weekend.
“For the record: We will never abandon Ayungin Shoal. We are committed to Ayungin Shoal,” said the Philippines’ National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Malaya at a press conference on Monday.
He used the country’s term for Second Thomas Shoal, a submerged reef in the Spratly Islands where a handful of Filipino soldiers have been living on the decrepit World War II-era warship BRP Sierra Madre. It was intentionally grounded there in 1999 to help assert the Philippines’ sovereignty claim over the area.
But Beijing said it had “indisputable” sovereignty of the area and urged the Philippines to stop infringing activities in those waters.
Malaya was among the officials of the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea who gave details of the latest tense encounter between the Philippines and China in the disputed waterway on Saturday.
The West Philippine Sea is the term Filipinos use to refer to the eastern parts of the South China Sea that fall within the country’s 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone, but which Beijing claims as its own.
Eight Chinese vessels – six from the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) and two Chinese maritime militia ships – surrounded and fired water cannons at the two smaller boats chartered by the Philippine Navy to bring supplies to its outpost in the Spratlys as well as the two Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) ships acting as their escorts.
The task force presented photos and videos at the press conference showing how the Chinese ships manoeuvred to separate the PCG vessels from the resupply boats, in a bid to block their voyage to the shoal. The CCG ships used their water cannons on all four Philippine boats.
In one footage, a CCG vessel moved within metres of the rear end of one of the two smaller Philippine resupply boats.
PCG spokesman, Commodore Jay Tarriela, said this “dangerous manoeuvre” suggested the CCG vessel wanted to ram into the smaller boat.
The Philippines also noted the presence of at least three Chinese navy ships nearby, though these were not directly involved in the incident.
Malaya said the encounter on Saturday constituted Beijing’s “blockade” of Second Thomas Shoal.
“This was a concerted effort wherein our ships were effectively corralled. So this was like a David versus Goliath situation... So technically, this looks like a blockade of the Ayungin Shoal,” he said.
The task force officials said China’s shadowing and water cannon firing lasted for about an hour. Only one of the small boats was able to deliver supplies to the BRP Sierra Madre. The other boat had to turn back. No Filipino was hurt during the encounter.
The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs has summoned Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian to hand-deliver the country’s diplomatic protest to Beijing over the incident.
This is the 35th protest filed by the Philippines against China in 2023 over its increasing aggressiveness in the South China Sea. Since 2020, Manila has filed 445 diplomatic protests against Beijing because of their territorial dispute.
“The Philippines demands that China immediately stop its illegal activities in our maritime zones,” said Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Teresita Daza.
In a separate interview with reporters, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said the country will continue upholding its sovereignty but will keep communication lines with China open.
“We continue to assert our territorial rights in the face of all of these challenges, and consistent with international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea especially. That has always been our stand,” he said.
Marcos has been upholding a 2016 international arbitral tribunal ruling that rejected Beijing’s nine-dash line claim over most of the waterway, which is also claimed by four Asean countries, including the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Vietnam, as well as Taiwan.
But China refuses to recognise the ruling and has instead beefed up its military presence and artificial island-building activities in the waters that Filipinos call the West Philippine Sea.
On Monday, the CCG told the Philippines to remove the grounded BRP Sierra Madre from Second Thomas Shoal.
China said it had earlier told Manila not to send ships to the Second Thomas Shoal and not to send “construction materials used for large-scale repair and reinforcement” to the warship after it learned of this recent supply plan, the CCG said in a statement.
But Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman, Colonel Medel Aguilar, refused, saying: “Who is the China Coast Guard to tell us what to do?”
China also urged the Philippines to restore the Second Thomas Shoal and said it had allowed transport of daily necessities including food to the grounded ship, adding that it had used the water cannon to avoid collision from a direct interception.
China is now facing international backlash over the encounter, with the Philippines’ allies such as the United States, Japan, Australia, Germany, Canada and the European Union condemning its actions.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said China “interfered with the Philippines’ lawful exercises of high seas freedom of navigation and jeopardised the safety of the Philippine vessels and crew”.
