The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) will not be able to replace the critical role of the Philippine Navy (PN) in ensuring the territorial defense of the country.
However, the PCG is ready to protect the country’s 36,000-kilometer long coastline, and the Filipino fishermen and vessels against all forms of threats and intimidations within its territorial waters, Commodore Jay Tarriela, PCG spokesperson on the West Philippine Sea, said.
“Ang PCG ay hindi kailanman papalitan ang Philippine Navy sa kanilang role sa territorial defense (The PCG will never replace the Philippine Navy in its role in territorial defense),” Tarriela said in a radio interview with dzBB on Sunday, Jan. 29.
Tarriela said the role of protecting the country’s interests in its territorial waters, particularly amid the continuous aggression of China in the West Philippine Sea, “still lies on the PN’s shoulders.”
“We are not a military institution,” he noted.
But Tarriela emphasized that the Coast Guard personnel will be ready to risk themselves in protecting the Filipinos in its own backyard.
“Kami po sa PCG, hindi namin katatakutan ang malalaking barko ng China (We, in the PCG, are not afraid of China’s big ships),” he said.
Tarriela issued the statement after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said last Thursday, Jan. 26, that the PCG now plays a “more intense” mission as some of the duties of the Navy have now been delegated to the Coast Guard due to several maritime incidents involving Philippine and Chinese vessels in recent years.
“As many of the incidents have started to show over the past few years, that mission has become more, shall we say, intense. Now you are expected to defend not only the coastline, but to defend our nationals,” Marcos said during the oath-taking of PCG officers in Malacanang.
Tarriela said Marcos could have been referring to the deployment of white ships or Coast Guard vessels to patrol the country’s territorial waters instead of gray ships or military vessels.
This practice has been adopted after the Philippines had a tense standoff with China at the Scarborough Shoal (Panatag Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc) in Zambales in 2012.
“Ang Philippine Navy ang nagpapatrolya ng ating West Philippine Sea subalit noong 2012 noong nagkaroon ng standoff sa China sa Scarborough Shoal, nagkaroon ng pagbabago ng approach (The Philippine Navy was the one patrolling our West Philippine Sea but in 2012, there was a standoff with China in the Scarborough Shoal that prompted changes in our approach),” he explained.
Since then, the PCG was tasked to deploy white ships to patrol the tension-filled waters since they are not operated by the military and deemed not provocative.
Tarriela said this policy was adopted in line with the regional norms in the South China Sea. Aside from the Philippines, other claimant-countries such as China, Malaysia, and Vietnam are also reliant on their white ships to patrol their waters to avoid raising the tension.
“We are in a plain agreement na hindi dapat i-militarize ang (that we should not militarize) South China Sea so with that kind of agreement among the claimant-states, we ended up using Coast Guard white ships,” he disclosed.