Chinese vessels are slowly coming closer to Philippine shores as two of their fishing boats were confirmed to have been spotted off the country’s east coast, it was bared on Tuesday, Oct. 29.
The Chinese fishing boats were monitored "within the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ)" on Monday afternoon, Oct. 28, but Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, Philippine Navy (PN) spokesperson for West Philippine Sea (WPS), insisted that the situation is “not alarming.”
“We have monitored them. Not only them, but other maritime traffic within our exclusive economic zone. We are coordinating with the appropriate government agency on how to address this,” Trinidad said, without specifying the exact location of the vessels.
However, retired US Air Force colonel and maritime security analyst Ray Powell posted a satellite image on X which showed that Chinese fishing boats “Lu Rong Yu 51794” and “Lu Yan Yuan Yu 017” were operating off the east coast of the Philippines at 4:59 a.m. on Tuesday.
He specifically located the Chinese vessels at “less than 20 nautical miles from the San Ildefonso Peninsula” in Casiguran, Aurora Province.
Aside from the Chinese boats, Powell said a China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel with bow number “3013” also conducted an “intrusive patrol” within 38 nautical miles of El Nido, Palawan on Oct. 28 “while the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is preoccupied recovering from the devastation from the deadly Tropical Storm Kristine.”
Trinidad explained that on the average, “almost a thousand” foreign vessels are being monitored in the whole Philippine archipelago every day.
“A lot of these are fishing boats. So unless we give specific attention to a particular report, then we treat everything as fishing boats and then this is part of the merchant marine traffic,” he said.
He noted that it’s not only Chinese vessels that are being monitored within the country’s EEZ, hence, the presence of the Chinese boats should not be a cause for concern.
“No, this is not alarming. It's not only the Chinese fishing boats that we monitor. There are other fishing boats from other countries all over our EEZ, including ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] countries and the Pacific Island states,” he said.
“We only give special attention if these are grey-hulled ships. If these are not grey-hulled ships, ships conducting fishing activities or others, we leave it to the proper government agency,” the admiral added.
Next week, the Navy is expected to release its first-ever month-long monitoring report on the presence of Chinese vessels in the WPS after it ditched the issuance of its weekly report on the matter.