Making way: A coastguard personnel cutting a rope attached to a floating barrier blocking the entrance to Scarborough Shoal in the disputed South China Sea. — AFP
Filipino fisherman Arnel Satam guns the motor of his tiny wooden boat as he makes a dash for the shallow waters of Scarborough Shoal in the disputed South China Sea, with Chinese coastguard speedboats in hot pursuit.
In a high-sea chase lasting several minutes, Satam tries in vain to outrun the faster boats in the hope of slipping inside the ring of reefs controlled by China, where fish are more abundant.
Friday’s pursuit was witnessed by AFP journalists on board the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources ship BRP Datu Bankaw, which was delivering food, water and fuel to Filipino fishermen plying the contested waters, sometimes for weeks on end.
The fishermen complained that China’s actions at Scarborough Shoal were robbing them of a key source of income and a place to shelter safely during a storm.
“I want to fish in there,” a defiant Satam, 54, told journalists as he stood barefoot on his light blue outrigger bearing a Superman “S” emblem.
“I do this thing often. They already chased me earlier today,” he said, adding that the Chinese speedboats had bumped his vessel.
“I just laughed at them.”
Scarborough Shoal is 240km west of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon and nearly 900km from the nearest major Chinese land mass of Hainan.
Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which China helped negotiate, countries have jurisdiction over the natural resources within about 200 nautical miles of their shore.
China, which claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, snatched control of Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012.
Since then, it has deployed coastguard and other vessels to block or restrict access to the fishing ground that has been tapped by generations of Filipinos.
Philippine officials also accused the Chinese coastguard of laying a 300m-long floating barrier across the entrance to the shoal shortly before the BRP Datu Bankaw arrived.
The temporary barrier “prevents Filipino Fishing Boats from entering the shoal and depriving them of their fishing and livelihood activities”, the Philippine coastguard and fisheries bureau said in a joint statement condemning its installation.
More than 50 wooden outrigger fishing vessels, which Filipinos call “mother boats”, were operating in the deep waters outside the shoal when the Philippine ship dropped anchor last Wednesday.
To enable them to stay at sea for longer and catch more fish, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources carries out regular resupply missions.
Four Chinese coastguard boats patrolled the waters, keeping the BRP Datu Bankaw and Filipino fishermen away from the shoal.
Unfazed by the warnings, the 12 crew members of the BRP Datu Bankaw distributed 60 tonnes of fuel in blue plastic jerry cans to the fishing boats, as well as food packs for those running low on provisions.
The supplies were free for the fishermen, but some showed their gratitude by giving the BRP Datu Bankaw crew tubs of freshly caught fish. — AFP
