CATARMAN, Northern Samar – Mapanas, Northern Samar Mayor Ronn Michael Tejano has called on the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) to enhance their presence following the recent sighting of a Chinese-flagged research vessel in municipal waters.

MAP of Northern Samar with the town of Mapanas highlighted.

“Given that Mapanas is the center of the Pacific towns in Northern Samar, it would be better that if similar incidents happen, there's a Coast Guard monitoring system near us for faster reporting and response,” Tejano said.

Although the Chinese vessel which was reportedly located approximately 80 nautical miles from the shoreline has not been visually confirmed on site, Tejano asked that they be capacitated to enable them to effectively monitor any suspicious activities at sea.

He said local fishermen who operate within 10 to 15 nautical miles from the coast have not encountered the Chinese vessel.

“We don’t know what their intentions are so we don't know whether we should be bothered or not but we leave this issue to our provincial and national defense security on how to address this issue.”

Tejano added that with the previous reports of illegal drugs found in their area, it would be a big help if they had facilities and equipment to respond to these incidents.

The PCG Northern Samar station has no floating assets and the PCG Eastern Visayas only has one ship, the BRP Capones, acquired from Japan in 2017.

Mapanas is a fifth-class municipality  rich in marine biodiversity and home to pelagic fishes skipjack and yellowfin tuna and mackerel scad or galunggong.