Chinese use water cannon on BFAR ship

A CHINESE vessel reportedly fired a water cannon at a ship of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in the shallow lagoon in Bajo de Masinloc (Scarborough Shoal), a ranking Philippine Navy official said on Tuesday.

But Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad failed to provide the incident date of the renewed water cannon attack.

«Yes, we were informed of a water cannon incident in Bajo de Masinloc by the Chinese coast guard vessel toward a BFAR vessel,» Trinidad said in a press briefing in Camp Aguinaldo.

The information of the water cannon attack was mentioned while military officials were holding a defense communication meeting early Tuesday morning.

Trinidad said they would defer to the BFAR to make an official statement on what has become an increasingly commonplace act of aggression on the part of Chinese vessels in the South China Sea.

Bajo de Masinloc, also called Panatag or Scarborough Shoal, is located 124 nautical miles off Masinloc, Zambales, and is considered within the Philippines' 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.

But Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual shipborne commerce, including parts claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

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In 2016, an international arbitration tribunal in Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines over China's claims in the South China Sea, saying that it had «no legal basis.»

China has not recognized the decision.

Trinidad said the Navy was committed to protecting the country's territorial integrity amid the latest Chinese aggression.

«We're concerned about that. We will continue supporting the [Philippine] Coast Guard and BFAR. We will continue performing our mandate of patrolling the West Philippine Sea (WPS). We will ensure that the integrity of our territory is intact,» Trinidad said.

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As this developed, the Navy said its September 30 to October 6 monitoring data showed that a total of 190

assorted Chinese ships were spotted in various locations in the WPS.

Amid the tension in the SCS, six allied nations hosted by the Philippines and backed by the United States were set to