THE Philippines on Wednesday fired off its second and third diplomatic protests within a week for the continued presence of what are suspected to be People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) in the West Philippine Sea.
The demarche came a few days after Philippine authorities celebrated the vessels’ alleged departure in the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), only to find that the blue-hulled vessels had simply scattered among Philippine-claimed features.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) later clarified it actually sent two diplomatic protests on Wednesday to the Chinese Embassy in Manila against Chinese vessels’ continuing presence in the West Philippine Sea.
“One counts as the daily protest the DFA said it would do as long as there are ships at Julian Felipe Reef.
“The second protest is on the dispersal/displacement of Chinese ships to other parts of the Philippine maritime zone,” the DFA explained.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., apparently read the presence of 240 Chinese ships swarming in the Philippines’s EEZ in a near midnight tweet from ABS-CBN: “At least 240 Chinese ships swarming in Philippines’s EEZ: NTF-WPS,” a reference to the National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea.
“I haven’t heard anything from the…. NTF-WPS but I’ll take ABS-CBN News’ word for it. Changing my policy of acting only on NTF requests,” Locsin tweeted.
However, Locsin said the news of the swarming is not as bad as the Chinese fishermen having poached as much as they can from the contested waters.
“The really bad news is NOT that they’re swarming as a prelude to legal possession—legally impossible; they really are fishing—everything in the water that belongs by law to us: fish, clams, and in such big quantities as to wipe out sustainability.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) first filed the diplomatic protest related to the presence of 220 Chinese fishing vessels in Julian Reef on March 21, 2021, followed by another in April 6, 2021, where the DFA vowed to “file daily protests over Beijing’s failure to pull out the vessels from the area.”
The People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia is China’s alleged government-funded maritime militia operating in the South China Sea without clear identification. They are sometimes referred to as the “little blue men,” because of the blue color of the ship’s hull.
According to a Taiwan Congressional Research Service report, the PAFMM and coast guard are deployed more regularly than the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in maritime sovereignty-assertion operations.
This is in contrast to the “white hull” and “grey hull” vessels the PLA sends to the SCS, white hulls being associated with stabilizing presence, while grey hulls are regular navy forces, according to The National Interest, The South China Sea Hull Warfare.”
“White hulls” do not convey the same overtly militaristic, war-fighting impression as regular naval forces (grey hulls) employed for this purpose,” it explained.
“The continuous swarming of Chinese vessels poses a threat to the safety of navigation, the safety of life at sea, and impedes the exclusive right of Filipinos to benefit from the marine wealth in the EEZ,” the NTF-WPS said, reiterating the government’s demand for China to withdraw all its ships in the West Philippine Sea.
A report by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Western Command said the PAFMM vessels were spotted in the territorial waters of the Municipality of Kalayaan, Palawan, and the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), with 136 militia vessels spotted off Burgos (Gaven) Reefs; nine at Julian Felipe (Whitsun) Reef; 65 off Chigua (McKennan) Reef, six (6) off Panganiban (Mischief) Reef; three off Zamora (Subi) Reef; four off Pag-asa (Thitu) Island; one off Likas (West York) Island; five off Kota (Loaita) Island; and 11 at Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal.
Also spotted during the April 11 sovereignty patrol were the following People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels: two Houbei class missile warships off Panganiban Reef; a corvette-class warship off Kagitingan (Fiery Cross) Reef; and a Navy tugboat at Zamora Reef.
Build outposts
Meanwhile, an American tech firm on Wednesday suggested that the Philippines should build monitoring outposts in unoccupied features within its EEZ to deter foreign incursions in the WPS.
Liz Derr, founder and CEO of Simularity, discussing geospatial analysis that also provides satellite data imagery, said the Philippines can choose “key unoccupied areas within its EEZ where it could put up stations while increasing patrols within its waters.”
Derr told an online forum hosted by Stratbase ADR Institute: “If you are serious about protecting your sovereignty, and your people, you need to actively monitor, patrol and occupy features in your EEZ.”
Derr said the Philippines has 27 uninhabited features within its EEZ that are vulnerable to foreign occupation.
She listed the key features as: Hopps Reef, Sabina Shoal, Southern Banks, Hardy Reef, Boxall Reef, Iriquois Reef, Hopkins Reef, Third Thomas Shoal, Jackson Atoll, Livock Reef, Alicia Annie Reef, Empire Reef, Jones Reef, Higgens Reef, Holiday Reef and Hallet Reef.
Other uninhabited areas are: Pennsylvania South Reef, Southern Banks, McKennan Reef, Edmund Reef, Loveless Reef, Director Reef, Half Moon Shoal, Bombay Shoal, Northeast Investigator Shoal, Royal Captain Shoal, and Seahorse Shoal.
Constructing structures in these areas, such as lighthouses, can be done inexpensively “without provoking war,” Derr said, noting that the Philippines has been very weak in protecting its territory compared to other claimants.
“If the Philippines occupies the unoccupied Spratlys features in its EEZ, with some research into prioritizing which to occupy and what the best level of occupation is, their EEZ will be protected,” she said.
The presence of Philippine-built structures in the area will also protect Filipino fishermen and defend their right to continue fishing within the country’s waters.
“If this weakness continues, we will surely see more features being occupied by foreign countries,” Derr warns.
Aside from the Philippines and China, the SCS is also claimed by four other countries: Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
The Philippines renamed the WPS as areas that fall under the Philippines’s EEZ in the South China Sea.
Alarm bells have been sounded by military experts and analysts during the last few years; they said the SCS could be a flashpoint that could trigger a bigger conflict, leading to a major war among competing states.
This could arise from miscommunication or accidental collision of ships or aircraft in the air and in the strategic waters, where a series of military exercises have been held by both China and the United States and its allies for the past few years.
The 2016 Arbitral ruling handed down by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, invalidated Chinese expansive claims in the SCS under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
The Asian giant, however, continues to ignore the ruling and the Unclos, which it has ratified.
Some $3.7 billion worth of goods sail through the 1.3-million-square-mile SCS every year, while oil and gas deposits are believed waiting to be exploited.
In March, the Task Force on WPS reported the presence of more than 200 Chinese vessels in Julian Felipe Reef, which the Chinese named Niu’e Jiao.
Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines, Huang Xilian claims their vessels were simply taking refuge from rough seas, in the calm surface of the boomerang-shaped lagoon, a claim that Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and the DFA have rejected.
Despite multiple protests from the Philippine government and demand for their immediate withdrawal, the vessels have remained, albeit scattered among the reefs and atolls of the WPS.