The increasing presence of Chinese vessels in Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal) is costing Filipino fishermen in Zambales 70 percent of their income, the militant group Pamalakaya said Thursday.
From an average income of P1,000 per fishing trip, fishermen now earn a measly P300 since last year, said Pamalakaya vice chair for Luzon Bobby Roldan.
Roldan, a fisherman from Botolan, Zambales, said small fishers who used to go to Panatag Shoal now crowd the town’s 15-kilometer fishing grounds along with advanced local commercial fishing vessels.
“Government should encourage and fund our big fishing operators to sail in the West Philippine Sea so we can take back what is ours that China is consuming,” he said in Filipino.
“We only earn enough each trip for the cost of fuel and ice. At worst, it’s not enough. We will surely drown in debt,” Roldan added.
He and his colleagues are unable to return to Panatag Shoal out of fear of being harassed or aggressively driven away by Chinese vessels there.
Meanwhile, Senator Francis “Tol” N. Tolentino has filed a bill seeking to rename Benham Rise on the country’s eastern shore as the “Philippine Rise” or “Talampas ng Pilipinas” to underscore the country’s assertion of sovereign rights over the 13-million-hectare underwater plateau.
“Renaming the Benham Rise to Philippine Rise or Talampas ng Pilipinas is an exercise of sovereignty and is aimed at protecting national interest,” said Tolentino.
In his Senate Bill No. 2235, Tolentino said the measure will complement President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order No. 25, which changed Benham Rise’s name to Philippine Rise.
Tolentino’s measure also intends to name the 22 undersea features found in the area.
China’s militarization not only leads to the destruction of marine resources but also exhausts fish stocks, said Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya national chairperson and former Anakpawis Party-list representative.
“The intensified Chinese annexation is adversely affecting our domestic food security. Decisively asserting our sovereign rights is a matter of right to food and livelihood for the Filipinos,” he said in the same statement as Roldan.
The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources had earlier called on Filipino fishermen to swarm the West Philippine Sea, saying the country has nearly 300,000 fishermen and more than 100 commercial fishing boats ply its exclusive economic zone regularly.
Tolentino’s bill seeks to mandate the use of the name “Philippine Rise” or “Talampas ng Pilipinas” and the names adopted in the bill for its undersea features in official maps, charts, and all other official documents.
All private institutions, organizations, and establishments organized under the laws of the Philippines or operating within the Philippines are also mandated to use the designations in all communications, announcements, and messages, both domestically and internationally.
Tolentino cited the country’s sovereign rights over the Philippine Rise, an underwater plateau about 2,000 to 5,000 meters deep located off Aurora province.
Article 77 of the United Nations’ Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides that a coastal state has sovereign rights over its continental shelf for the purpose of exploration and exploiting its natural resources.
He noted that other states may exploit or undertake exploration activities in the Philippine Rise without express consent of the Philippines.
Previously, China named five undersea features in the Philippine Rise despite the declaration by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UNLCS) that it is part of the Philippines’ continental shelf.
The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), an intergovernmental organization that aims to ensure the world’s waters are surveyed and charted, approved one of the names submitted by China in 2016 and four other names in 2017.
