DND: 2 Chinese ships tailed Sunday’s multilateral patrol in West PH Sea

HOUNDED AT SEA China Coast Guard personnel aboard their rigid hull inflatable boat (left) in this photo taken on Feb. 16 trails a small Philippine boat carrying Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources personnel from the BRP Datu Tamblot trying to enter Scarborough Shoal, as a larger Chinese vessel is seen in the West Philippine Sea. — File photo from AFP dated March 13, 2024

MANILA, Philippines —  Two Chinese ships were tailing the first-ever patrol of the Philippines together with its three key allies in the West Philippine Sea over the weekend in view of mounting tensions there.

Department of National Defense Spokesperson Arsenio Andolong on Monday confirmed to reporters that People’s Liberation Army-Navy warships with bow numbers 792 and 162 were monitored six nautical miles away from the exercise area off the coast Busanga, Palawan. 

“Their distance is also quite far, they are not, it’s unlike our rotation and resupply operations where they really come close…This time nothing like that happened,” said Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief General Romeo Brawner Jr. of the Chinese activities during an ambush interview in Camp Aguinaldo.

READ: PH holds West Philippine Sea drills with 3 key allies

Beijing  asserts sovereignty in the entire South China Sea, including most of the West Philippine Sea, even if such a claim has been effectively invalidated by a July 2016 international tribunal ruling that stemmed from a case filed by Manila in 2013.

Brawner, then, deemed the multilateral antisubmarine exercise a success.

“We were able to achieve all the objectives that we have set forth including the anti-submarine warfare exercise that we conducted,” Brawner said in another ambush interview in Camp Aguinaldo.

The Philippines, the United States, and Australia conducted their first-ever joint maritime exercises in the western section of the country’s exclusive economic zone.

Exercises involved the Philippine Navy’s frigate BRP Antonio Luna (FF-151) with antisubmarine warfare AW159 helicopter and patrol ship BRP Valentin Diaz (PS-177), the US Navy’s littoral combat ship USS Mobile (LCS-26), the Royal Australian Navy’s frigate HMAS Warramunga (FFH-152), and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s destroyer JS Akebono (DD-108). 

United States and Australia each deployed a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.