By Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza, Reporter
MANILA on Tuesday accused China of intimidating Filipino fishermen near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea and normalizing its “illegal presence” after Beijing sent its biggest coast guard ship into the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile (370.4 kilometers) exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
National Security Council spokesman Jonathan E. Malaya said the deployment of the 165-meter China Coast Guard 5901, the largest in the world, was meant “to intimidate our fishermen and intimidate us.”
“We can clearly see that the intimidation tactics are not successful and that we remain resolute in supporting our Filipino fishermen,” he told a news briefing, adding that the presence of the “monster ship” near the coast of Zambales province in northern Philippines is an “escalation and provocative.”
He reiterated a call for China to withdraw from Manila’s waters the “monster ship” that he said was deployed to intimidate its Filipino fishermen around Scarborough Shoal.
“We were surprised about the increasing aggression being shown by the People’s Republic of China in deploying the monster ship,” he said.
“Huang YanDao (Scarborough Shoal) is China’s territory,” the Chinese embassy in Manila told BusinessWorld in a Viber message. “We have delimited the territorial sea baselines. The China Coast Guard conducts its patrols and law enforcement activities in relevant waters in full accordance with the law. It is fully justified.”
The monster ship, first detected near the Zambales coast on Jan. 4, was last spotted 77 nautical miles west of Capones Island, according to Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tristan Tarriela.
Two PCG vessels — the flagship BRP Teresa Magbanua and BRP Gabriela Silang — have been dispatched to challenge the monster ship’s presence. An aerial asset of the PCG was also patrolling the area.
BRP Teresa Magbanua had to temporarily return to the port of Bataan on Monday for repairs after its auxiliary engines overheated. It has returned to the location of China’s monster ship to prevent it from inching closer to Zambales.
Mr. Tarriela said the monster ship’s presence near the Zambales coast could not be considered an innocent passage and does not fall under the principle of freedom of navigation because its movement is “not continuous and it is not expeditious.”
“Meaning, it has erratic movements — sometimes it goes up, goes down, turns left and turns right arbitrarily. There is no specific reason why they are doing that,” he said.
The Chinese government wants to “normalize” the presence of its coast guard vessels in Zambales in a bid to change the status quo at Scarborough Shoal, he added.
“This is something new based on our observation with the other China Coast Guard vessels,” Mr. Tarriela said. “Before, they were only patrolling in those areas that are pretty much contested and there is always a support from Chinese maritime militia’s swarming.”
A United Nations-backed tribunal based in the Hague in 2016 voided China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea, as it ruled Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing has controlled since 2012, is a traditional fishing ground for Filipino, Chinese and Vietnamese fishermen.
The shoal, which Manila calls Bajo de Masinloc, is 124 nautical miles off Masinloc, Zambales and is within the Philippines’ EEZ.
“This time around, the behavior of the China Coast Guard is intentional and focused only at a certain distance off the coast of Zambales — either 60 to 90 nautical miles,” Mr. Tarriela said.
There have been suspicions of a reclamation attempt by China after the sighting of a big pipe installed at the shoal last year.
The Philippine Navy has also discovered five submersible drones in different parts of Philippine waters since last year, two of which were on Kalayaan Island, one off the coast of Pasuquin in Ilocos Norte and another one in Initao, Misamis Oriental. The most recent one was discovered by fishermen in Masbate province on Dec. 30.
Navy spokesman Roy Vincent T. Trinidad said the recovered drones had been used to gather and understand water temperature, the water depth and salinity. They could be used for commercial, academic and military purposes, he said at the same briefing.
The Philippine Navy has been patrolling the area continuously, he said, adding that any reclamation activity is considered by the Philippine government as a “red line” that China or other nations should not cross.
“We’re not going to allow China to normalize the illegal deployment of the China Coast Guard because that is what they have being doing,” Mr. Tarriela said. “They’re going to normalize and change the status quo and operationalize and claim that they have been doing this for the past months or years.”
The Philippine Coast Guard is documenting the illegal presence of China’s Coast Guard and “telling the world that the Philippine government is against this unlawful presence of China Coast Guard-5901,” he added.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., outgoing US President Joseph R. Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru held a virtual trilateral summit on Monday “to advance our continuing cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region,” according to a White House readout.
Among the participants of the first-ever trilateral summit in April last year, only Mr. Marcos will remain in power by Jan. 20, the day Mr. Biden’s term ends this month. Mr. Ishiba took over in September 2024 after Fumio Kishida’s resignation amid corruption issues within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
‘COMMON ADVERSARY’
Mr. Marcos earlier had a phone call with Mr. Biden and was set to have one with outgoing Vice-President Kamala Harris on Tuesday evening.
He is set to meet with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya on Wednesday to boost the two nations’ “strategic partnership,” the Department of Foreign Affairs said last week.
Joshua Bernard B. Espeña, who teaches international relations at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, said the two nations should boost their security ties by stepping up their “defense industry linkages.”
The Philippine Senate last month ratified the nation’s reciprocal access agreement with Japan, which will facilitate the exchange and combined training of their troops.
“It is easy to suggest that deterring China is a commitment until you can sustain and support each other in sustaining the logistical and production aspects of deterring a common adversary,” Mr. Espeña said.
“This is most crucial as Japan confronts trinity threats from North Korea, China and Russia on its home islands, and the Philippines is in need of more international support at strategic and operational levels of concern,” he added.
Hansley A. Juliano, who teaches political science at the Ateneo de Manila University, said Tokyo would likely continue its free and open Indo-Pacific policy, “which has been consistently the case for the LDP throughout the early 2020s.”
“Even if a more interventionist Japan isn’t exactly on the table for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, we can expect it’s still on his mind and it’s still going to animate much of the strategic considerations of the Japanese government,” he said in a Facebook Messenger chat.
“With the Japanese economy’s continued reliance on tourism and foreign labor, our relationship is becoming more and more equalized over the years, which is something the Philippine government hasn’t yet fully maximized due to our relative weakness in hosting industrial and service economic activities from Japan, to the point that Vietnam, Thailand and even Malaysia and Indonesia have overtaken us,” Mr. Juliano said.
“Our government’s further expansion and strengthening of our Japanese ties should primarily focus on making us as strong and as viable as our Southeast Asian neighbors for Japan to consider further integrating us into their global supply chain,” he added.