Philippines ditches weekly reporting on Chinese vessels in West Philippine Sea

MANILA, Philippines — The Armed Forces of the Philippines will no longer provide the public with weekly updates on the number of Chinese vessels seen swarming the West Philippine Sea, opting instead for monthly summaries that it believes will capture the "bigger picture."

Roy Vincent Trinidad, the Philippine Navy spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, said the shift to a monthly reporting of Chinese vessels' illegal presence is part of the AFP's "recalibaration" of its public communications on matters related to the West Philippine Sea.

"We are still monitoring the illegal presence of the [People's Liberation Army] Navy, Coast Guard, and the maritime militia. But our reporting on them will be on a monthly basis to give us a longer duration to look at trends, and to assess on a longer period of time," Trinidad said in a press conference on Tuesday, October 22.

When asked if the AFP will still show the weekly changes in the number of Chinese vessels in the contested waters, Trinidad said in an interview: "It depends on how we package everything."

"We have to look at how to present everything na hindi lang siya figures (not just focused on figures)," Trinidad added.

He said the AFP is "looking at better metrics" and "a better assessment tool" to chart the trends of Chinese vessels' illegal presence in the contested waters.

"We can't (see the trend) in a one week period of time... You do not want to get too focused on the here and now. You want the taumbayan (public) to see the big picture over a longer period of time," Trinidad said.

Implications for transparency. Trinidad does not see the shift to monthly reporting as a step back in the Philippines’ assertive transparency initiative — the Marcos administration's policy of actively exposing China's swarming, blocking, and tailing actions that restrict Philippine access to its own waters. 

Instead, the military believes this approach will offer a fuller picture of China’s actions while spotlighting its own personnel's activities, including its patrols, Trinidad said.

"Transparency is showing the world not only what's happening, but what we are doing, and what we are doing is hard to quantify in figures and part