Seeing ‘red’ all over the places

For the nth time, Chinese Coast Guard ships attacked with water cannons our Philippine vessels to shoo them away from the humanitarian mission to our Filipino fishermen in Panatag Shoal last Tuesday. At least five Chinese militia-crewed ships tried to prevent the entry of our civilian ships to reach the shoal although already surrounded with floating barriers that surreptitiously reappeared around its rich fishing grounds.

Internationally named as Scarborough Shoal, the Panatag Shoal is actually a formation of rocks that emerge during low tide. But the rocks, the shoal are within our 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

The Chinese militia-steered ships trained their water cannons using jet-stream pressure at both the starboard and port sides of our Philippine Coast Guard’s (PCG) vessel BRP Bagacay and at the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) ship BRP Bankaw. They visibly targeted the radar equipment of our two ships to disable them. But the Philippine flag flying atop the two ships proudly withstood the repeated water cannon attacks.

A day after this incident, Philippine Navy spokesman for the WPS Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad announced in our Kapihan sa Manila Bay that our two ships were able “to regroup” later that night. Trinidad reported the two ships completed their humanitarian mission to bring food, fuel and other “ayuda” to Filipino fishermen waiting for them around the Panatag Shoal.

The Philippines, he vows, will not engage in a “water cannon war” with China. But he hastened to clarify that this does not mean our Philippine government allows such wanton disrespect of our sovereign rights over the contested overlapping maritime claims around the WPS.

“It just so happens that our government is very strong in resisting against what China is doing which may seem tolerable but is actually what I call a creeping invasion,” Trinidad warned.

Trinidad stressed they will observe and abide by the instructions of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) as the country’s chief foreign policy architect. He reiterated the Philippine Navy, the PCG, and the BFAR will not be deterred to perform their mandates