The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) is currently evaluating the extent of the damage to its vessel after it was sideswiped and hit with a water cannon by a Chinese ship earlier this week.
In a Saturday news forum, BFAR spokesperson Nazario Briguera said the China Coast Guard (CCG) damaged BRP Datu Sanday’s port bow and smokestack.
“The damage could be in thousands of pesos. Our ships are not made of ordinary materials, so it could be thousands or maybe a million pesos,” Briguera said. The BRP Datu Sanday has returned to Bataan for further assessment.
Despite the harassment from Chinese vessels, the BFAR said it remains committed to carrying out their future missions. Their recent routine scientific research mission was successfully completed, with sufficient samples collected from Pag-asa Cay.
“We take samples to learn the actual state of the marine resources… the state and extent of the resources in the West Philippine Sea,” Briguera said.
Independent think-tank Stratbase Institute, meanwhile, issued a message of condemnation on the recent water cannon incident, saying what the CCG did is a “direct threat to the safety of Filipino personnel conducting legitimate and peaceful activities in the country’s own territory.”
“This incident reflects China’s blatant disregard for the Philippines’ sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the organization said. It urged the Philippine government to remain resolute in asserting the country’s sovereign rights.
“The Stratbase Institute stresses the primacy of international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 2016 Arbitral Award. China’s blatant disregard of these legal instruments is a clear affront to the rules-based international order and undermines the very foundations that uphold peace among nations.”
Retired U.S. Air Force Col. Ray Powell, director of SeaLight at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, said China’s recent actions indicate a calculated attempt to strengthen its grip over disputed areas in the West Philippine Sea.
“We’ve seen the action shift north and west, toward Scarborough Shoal (Bajo de Masinloc) and Pag-asa Island,” Powell said in an interview. “Scarborough is now practically controlled by China — they’ve taken up positions in the West Philippine Sea that amount to what I call a maritime occupation.”
Powell said the location is significant: Sandy Cay, if proven to be above water at high tide, qualifies as a “rock” under international law, generating its own 12-nautical-mile territorial sea — a legal status China appears eager to exploit.
China and the Philippines have been locked in years of maritime confrontations in the disputed South China Sea, which Beijing claims nearly in its entirety—despite an international ruling that invalidates it as having no legal basis.