Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and China Coast Guard vessels collide in the West Philippine Sea on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, causing “minor structural damage” to the Philippines’ ship. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels collided in the West Philippine Sea on Tuesday, causing “minor structural damage” to the Philippines’ ship.
Commodore Jay Tarriela, PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, said the incident happened during the “rotation and reprovisioning operation” (Rore) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the West Philippine Sea.
READ: China Coast Guard fires water cannon at PH ship again
“Throughout the operation, the PCG vessels faced dangerous maneuvers and blocking from Chinese Coast Guard vessels and Chinese Maritime Militia,” Tarriela said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.
“Their reckless and illegal actions led to a collision between MRRV-4407 and China Coast Guard 21555 that resulted in minor structural damage to the PCG vessel,” he added.
The Philippine military’s Rore proceeded despite the incident and is ongoing within the country’s waters as of this writing.
The BRP Sindangan and a sister ship had been deployed to support AFP’s Rore.
READ: 4 PH Navy crew hurt by China Coast Guard’s water cannon attack
The Chinese Global Times reported Tuesday that the CCG “lawfully took control measures on Tuesday against a Philippine vessel illegally entering the waters adjacent to Ren’ai Jiao in the Nansha Islands.”
Ren’ai Jiao is the Chinese name for the Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands group, which Beijing calls Nansha.
The collision was the second such incident since December when Chinese ships blasted water cannon at Philippine boats.
China has claimed it owns almost the entire South China Sea, brushing aside competing claims from a host of Southeast Asian nations and an international ruling that declared their case baseless.
Just this Monday, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Enrique Manalo urged for solidarity in upholding the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) to ensure “peace, prosperity, and stability” in the region around the South China Sea, where the West Philippine Sea can also be found.
Manalo said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and Australian leaders must prioritize “cooperation over confrontation, and diplomacy over the use or the threat of the use of force.”
He also stressed the Philippines’ legal support for its claim over the contested waters in the South China Sea.
Manalo made these remarks at the Maritime Cooperation Forum on the sidelines of the special summit between member states of the Asean and Australia.