Filipino fishermen: We’re scared but we’ll go back

DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines—He had been driven away twice from Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal), but fisherman Efren Montehermozo Jr. said he will continue to fish in the area.

Montehermozo, 20, was one of 80 fishermen in 15 boats from the provinces of Pangasinan, Zambales and Bataan who were chased off the shoal by water cannons fired from a Chinese vessel guarding the area on at least two occasions this month.

Montehermozo said a fisherman from Zambales province was hurt when he fell off his boat after he was hit by the water cannon.

“I’m scared. But fishing is our only source of livelihood and the area is rich with fish. We will go back, but not now. Maybe much later,” said Montehermozo, who comes from the coastal village of Cato in Infanta town.

Montehermozo said he and his group left Barangay (village) Cato on April 8. After fishing in the open sea for four days, the group decided to head for the shoal. But as they neared the shoal at 4 p.m. on April 13, Chinese patrol boats approached them and men on the boats started shouting, “No fishing! No fishing! Go! Go! Go!”

No choice

“As they told us to leave, they were firing their water cannons at us. We had no choice but to leave,” Montehermozo recounted, adding that he managed to record an eight-minute video of the incident using his mobile phone.

From the shoal, the fishermen sailed for four days until they reached Montehermozo’s village in Infanta on April 17.

Dante Paluan, village administrator of Cato, said most of the residents in his village are fishermen who used to sail to Panatag Shoal, also called Bajo de Masinloc, some 260 kilometers away. The shoal serves as a mid-sea refuge for fishing boats during stormy weather at sea and used to be a free zone for local fishermen until the Chinese began patrolling the West Philippine Sea.

In 2012, China deployed its Coast Guard in the area amid a territorial dispute with the Philippine government and conflicting claims over the shoal.

Since that time, Paluan said, local fishers would sail only up to the payao, the artificial reef located 148 to 185 km into the West Philippine Sea, to catch tuna and other deep-sea fishes.

Gunpoint

“But when their catch is not good in the payao, they move to Scarborough Shoal even if it’s risky to catch more fish,” the village official said.

On Monday, Montehermozo and other fishers who figured in the April 13 incident, sailed to the West Philippine Sea to fish but decided to avoid Panatag Shoal.

“I’m just wondering why we can no longer fish there,” he said. “My parents and grandparents used to fish there. It’s closer to (the Philippines) than to China,” he added.

Montehermozo and fisherfolk in two other boats experienced the same rough rebuff from Chinese vessels in February while they were fishing at Panatag Shoal. He recalled how Chinese Coast Guard personnel on a speedboat approached them and, at gunpoint, asked them to leave.

Filipino fishermen in other areas had been targeted as well.

In January last year, Chinese vessels fired water cannons at a group of Infanta fishermen and other fishing boats while these were anchored at Panatag Shoal to avoid huge waves whipped up by strong winds at that time.