BLOCKING MANEUVERS | Two Chinese coast guard ships corral a Philippine civilian boat chartered by the Philippine Navy to deliver supplies to the grounded BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal, in this photo taken from the Philippine Coast Guard vessel BRP Cabra on Aug. 22, 2023. The inset photo shows a US surveillance plane. (Agence France-Presse)
ABOARD THE BRP CABRA — As a US military surveillance plane circled overhead, eight Chinese ships chased and briefly blocked four Philippine boats on a resupply mission to a tiny garrison in the hotly contested South China Sea.
The high seas cat-and-mouse game on Tuesday followed assurances from Chinese coast guard vessels patrolling the waters that the Filipino boats would be allowed to deliver provisions to the remote outpost on Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal “in the spirit of humanism.”
But, the Chinese radio operator warned, the two Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels escorting the two boats carrying supplies for Filipino marines stationed on the BRP Sierra Madre, a crumbling navy ship grounded atop the reef should leave or “bear full responsibility for all the consequences.”
A team of AFP journalists on board the BRP Cabra, one of the two PCG vessels, watched as the Chinese vessels chased, blocked and corralled the four Philippine vessels.
One of the Chinese coast guard ships even came within several meters of the Cabra.
Eventually, both Philippine supply boats reached the marooned BRP Sierra Madre and unloaded their cargo.
Pizza and ice cream treat
On Wednesday, the two boats used by the Philippine Navy safely returned to pier in Puerto Princesa City after the successful resupply mission despite China’s continued harassment.
The crew and returning sailors — who traveled for 26 hours at sea to go back to shore after delivering provisions and fresh troops—were treated with pizza and ice cream as soon as they got off the boats.
“We’re very happy. Everybody is high morale that the Rore (rotation and resupply) team is safely back and they were able to get in the shoal,” said Western Command (Wescom) chief Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos, who led the short welcome ceremony at the Oyster Bay pier.
It was also the first time that a Philippine Army officer, a liaison representative of Wescom, was able to board the far-flung naval detachment and witness the living conditions there, Carlos added.
The boats Unaizah May 1 and 2 were able to evade a Chinese Coast Guard blockade on Tuesday to bring fresh provisions to the BRP Sierra Madre.
EYE TO EYE | Chinese Coast Guard personnel, photographed here from the Philippine Coast Guard ship BRP Cabra, follow the movement of the Filipino contingent en route to Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal on Aug. 22, 2023. (Agence France-Presse)
‘We don’t need permission’
While the latest resupply mission was successful, PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea Commodore Jay Tarriela told reporters on Wednesday that the Chinese ships, including “maritime militia,” had used “a lot of dangerous maneuvers” to harass the Philippine vessels.
He dismissed the Chinese coast guard’s claims of “humanitarian consideration” in allowing the delivery of supplies.
“Let me once again stress, there is no reason for us to ask permission from them,” Tarriela said during the Laging Handa briefing, referring to China.
He said during the Aug. 22 resupply mission, four Chinese vessels and four maritime militia boats again made “dangerous maneuvers” as two PCG boats and two supply boats were on their way to BRP Sierra Madre on Ayungin Shoal.
“The resupply operation that we had yesterday is not a walk in the park. We still experienced dangerous maneuvers, they still attempted to block our resupply operations,” he said.
Violation
Tarriela added what China did was a violation of the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, of which it was a signatory.
He said the China Coast Guard vessels didn’t use a water cannon during the Aug. 22 resupply mission.
“All they did was try to block and harass the supply boats and the Philippine Coast Guard vessels,” he added.
He said that during the last resupply mission on Aug. 5, China deployed six big coast guard vessels, but on Aug. 22 it deployed only two China Coast Guard vessels.
“I think this has something to do with optics. They want to show the world that they are not really that aggressive in preventing our resupply operations, so they adjusted to two smaller ships,” he said.
Tarriela said the Philippines did not need to ask permission from China to bring materials to Ayungin Shoal after Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian called it out for doing so.
‘We have sovereign rights’
“Ayungin Shoal is within our exclusive economic zone. We have the sovereign rights over these waters,” Tarriela said.
“No foreign intervention, or any country can stop the Philippine Coast Guard and the Armed Forces of the Philippines from exercising our sovereign rights over the waters in the West Philippine Sea,” he added.
In the same briefing, AFP spokesperson Col. Medel Aguilar said that China has no right to dictate to the Philippines what materials to bring to Ayungin Shoal.
“We are asserting our sovereign rights so that our people will benefit from it,” Aguilar said.
He stressed that the Philippines would not remove BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal which it also doesn’t intend to abandon.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes annually, and has ignored an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei have overlapping claims to parts of the sea.
China deploys hundreds of vessels to patrol the South China Sea and its reefs and Manila says China’s coast guard and navy ships routinely block or shadow Philippine boats there.
Ayungin Shoal is about 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the western Philippine island of Palawan, and more than 1,000 kilometers from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island.
The Philippine Navy deliberately grounded the World War II-era BRP Sierra Madre on the reef in 1999.