A Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) vessel sailing off the coast of Zambales in the West Philippine Sea used a long range acoustic device (LRAD) on Saturday to harass again the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG).
PCG said it was the first time that CCG-3103, which replaced CCG-3304 in “maintaining illegal patrol” in the area, employed an LRAD against the PCG’s 54-meter vessel BRP Cabra that has been safeguarding the Zambales coastline.
The LRAD was described by crew members as a device producing high decibel levels that can be painful and damaging to hearing.
The PCG also emphasized that CCG-3103 appears to be escorted by CCG-5901, otherwise known as the “monster ship.”
Currently, the CCG is pushed back to a position between 90 and 95 nautical miles from the Zambales shore, PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea (WPS) Commodore Jay Tarriela said. This is still well within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.
“The reason why we are deploying coast guard vessels… to ensure that we are not going to escalate the tension. As far as our actions na ginagawa dito sa pagbabantay ng iligal na presensiya ng [that we do to monitor the illegal presence of the] China Coast Guard, we are also conducting an hourly…radio challenge…even in the middle of the night,” Tarriela said in a Super Radyo dzBB interview on Sunday.
Tarriela also stressed that the PCG wants the CCG to internalize the message that they are illegally sailing within the Philippines’ EEZ, citing the Philippine Maritime Zones Act, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the 2016 Arbitral Award.
“Through this, we believe we are not just warning the Chinese government because we are telling them that these are all documented at ang ginagawa nga natin is [and what we do is] we forward this on a daily basis to the National Task Force West Philippine Sea, and the data that we also present is also submitted to the Department of Foreign Affairs,” he added.
On Friday, the CCG and People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) harassed Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) vessels going to Sandy Cay in the West Philippine Sea.
The PCG in a statement said the Chinese forces — three CCG vessels and one PLAN helicopter — harassed BFAR vessels BRP Datu Pagbuaya and BRP Datu Bankaw while these were en route to Sandy Cay for a marine scientific survey and sand sampling.
Such actions left the BFAR and PCG with no choice but to suspend the survey operations.
“China is blatantly violating international law. China does not care about UNCLOS and they are disrespecting our sovereign right,” Tarriela said.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said it would file another diplomatic protest following the incident.
“It’s just not a matter of telling China ‘Don’t do it,’ but always asserting our sovereign rights,” said DFA Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega.
In its own statement, China Coast Guard said China has “indisputable sovereignty” over the Spratly Islands, including Sandy Cay — which China calls Tiexian Reef — and that it had intercepted two Philippine vessels and driven them away in accordance with law, Reuters reported.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual ship-borne commerce, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei.
Parts of the waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone have been renamed the West Philippine Sea.
In 2016, an international arbitration tribunal in The Hague said China’s claims had no legal basis. Beijing has rejected the decision. —KG, GMA Integrated News
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