55 assorted Chinese ships spotted off WPS
THE military spotted 55 assorted Chinese ships spotted off five West Philippine Sea (WPS) features as of April 16.
“A total of 55 Chinese various Chinese vessels (were) monitored,” Philippine Navy (PN) spokesperson for the WPS Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad told reporters in a media briefing Tuesday.
This can be broken down into two China Coast Guard Vessels (CCGS) and 24 Chinese Maritime Militia Vessels (CMMVS) off Bajo De Masinloc (also known as Scarborough Shoal), one CCG and five Chinese Fishing Vessels (CFVS) near Ayungin Shoal, one CCG and 19 CMMVS off Pagasa Island, two in Panata Island, and one People’s Liberation Army Navy craft off Lawak.
The latest figure is higher than the 45 monitored last April 10.
“Their activities have been varied, some of them would be laying to or stationary, others would be moving, doing patrols,” Trinidad said.
Earlier, experts said more international support is needed by the Philippines against the continued aggression of China in the WPS.
These experts, which included former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, made this statement in a closed-door forum last April 11 organized by international think tank Stratbase in partnership with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).
In his presentation, Bautista recalled that only 21 countries expressed support for the Philippines when the Chinese Coast Guard once again fired water cannons against a resupply boat en route to Ayungin Shoal last March.
“We saw 21 countries support us in that incident but these are just 21 countries. There are over 100 countries around the world,” he said.
And of the 21 nations, Bautista said none of them are from Southeast Asia. “We hope more will speak out. We hope, especially, that our brothers in Southeast Asia will also speak out.”
The event was part a two-day forum titled “The West Philippine Sea as Ground Zero of Emerging Risks and Opportunities,” which brought together incumbent and former government officials, members of the diplomatic community, scholars, and policy experts to discuss the maritime security landscape in the WPS and explored avenues for cooperation with like-minded countries.
In the forum, Bautista also acknowledged that there is no enforcement mechanism for the 2016 arbitral ruling that recognized the Philippines’s sovereign rights to areas within its exclusive economic zone in the WPS.
“But if all of us speak out, I mean the international community, then that will result in social pressure on any errant state,” he said.
Meanwhile, Stratbase Institute President Dindo Manhit, in his opening statement, condemned China’s gray zone tactics which “seek to destabilize a rules-based international order.”
“Our country continues to encounter such attacks in the WPS in the form of shadowing, blocking, swarming strategies, laser incidents, water cannons, and even intentional collision incidents,” he added.
“I don’t see risk, I see opportunities for the Filipino nation. But it takes a whole of Philippine society approach. It takes the Philippines as a whole talking with the international community,” Manhit said.