The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) will not use the water cannon equipped to its ships as an offensive weapon against Chinese vessels in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

Commodore Jay Tarriela, PCG spokesperson for WPS, said the organization will not stoop down to the level of the China Coast Guard, which is notorious for firing jets of water to drive Philippine vessels away from the areas it claims within the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone of the Philippines.

"We choose to maintain our moral high ground," Tarriela said in a press briefing on Monday, Dec. 11.

All of the PCG vessels are equipped with water cannon but Tarriela said that these are only used for combatting fire at sea.

"This is not something that we consider as an offensive weapon to damage any other vessel," he stressed. "We don’t need to go down to the level of the China Coast Guard using their water cannon to use it as an offensive weapon and damaging other vessels."

CCG vessels have consistently used water cannon to prevent Philippine vessels from accessing certain areas in the WPS.

The latest of such incident occurred on Dec. 10 during a resupply mission to Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal when CCG vessels doused supply boats Unaizah Mae 1 and M/L Kalayaan and PCG escort ships BRP Cabra and BRP Sindangan with water cannon.

The current was so strong that it caused "severe damage" to M/L Kalayaan's engine and disabled it, while BRP Cabra suffered damage to its mast.

Tarriela said the action done by the CCG "doesn’t conform with the regional standard of promoting safety" in the Indo-Pacific region.

"If they are going to choose to do that kind of barbaric attack to prevent the Philippine Coast Guard or the Armed Forces of the Philippines in completing our resupply operation, then let them be so. But for the PCG, using a water cannon to respond to such attack is something that we’re not going to do," Tarriela reiterated.

"We abide by the guidance of the President [Ferdinand Marcos Jr.] that we don’t have to do anything stupid to escalate the tension," he added.

Meanwhile, a new "strategy" has been created by the National Task Force for West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) to counter the aggression by Chinese maritime forces in the WPS, especially during the resupply missions to Ayungin Shoal.

NTF-WPS spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said the strategy will be presented to Marcos and implemented once it is approved.

"The National Task Force [for] West Philippine Sea has prepared a new national strategy on the West Philippine Sea and we have made some adjustments giving the recent developments," he said.