Around 500 Filipino households on the idyllic island of San Salvador rely on fishing as a primary income source. From San Salvador, it requires around 18 hours by boat in good weather to reach Scarborough Shoal, the islanders’ traditional fishing ground.
For generations, the shoal has been a source of food for the people of San Salvador, as well as a sanctuary from typhoons for local fishermen. Yet, for the past decade or so, the Chinese Coast Guard has been patrolling the contested waters, and Scarborough Shoal has emerged to become a hotspot of Sino-Philippine tensions, and is usually the scene of Beijing’s increasing military assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea waters.
China is claiming almost all of the South China Sea and rejects a 2016 international arbitration ruling which stated it has no legal basis for the expansive claims, and affirming the rights of Filipino fishermen to fish at the Scarborough Shoal. The shoal is a strategic hub of the South China Sea, situated at the crossroads of profitable shipping lanes of the multi-trillion-dollar maritime trade. As such, the past ten years have seen China escalating its claims to “historic rights” in the contested South China Sea waters, mobilizing naval and militia fishing vessels to prevent Filipino fishermen from accessing the shoal.
“It’s hard and it hurts. What belongs to us, we cannot go to, we cannot enter,” Rony Drio, a Filipino fisherman, lamented to the South China Morning Post. According to Drio, the turning point was 2012 when a Philippine naval surveillance plane discovered eight Chinese fishing vessels inside Scarborough Shoal. Two days later, BRP Gregorio del Pilar, the Philippine navy’s largest patrol vessel, boarded the Chinese vessels and discovered endangered species of coral, giant clams and sharks. Chinese media slammed the Philippines for harassing the Chinese crew.
“Before the stand-off, we were still OK with the Chinese surveillance,” Drio said, adding that after the 2012 incident, Chinese Coast Guard ships arrived and banned access for Filipino fishermen.
“They were armed and had so many speedboats. Their boats are big and strong, if the ships of the Chinese coastguards collide with us, our boats will be destroyed.” Drio added that the ensuing years were unpredictable and hostile for local fishermen like himself.
Henrylito Empoc, a Filipino fisherman, said to Benar News after the Chinese Coast Guard began blocking fishing boats from coastal towns from going to Scarborough Shoal: “It just really makes me sad that we can’t fish in the same areas where we used to.”
On May 1, Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said a coast guard ship and an accompanying fisheries vessel were patrolling the waters off Scarborough Shoal when four Chinese coast guard ships, backed by six suspected militia ships, executed dangerous blocking maneuvers and one of the Chinese coast guard ship used a water cannon against the fisheries vessel, the BRP Bankaw, and two other Chinese coast guard ships hit the Philippine coast guard ship, the BRP Bagacay, simultaneously from both sides, damaging part of its deck railing and a canopy. This incident was latest in a series of confrontations which have intensified since last year.
In August 2023, the Philippine Coast Guard said a Chinese vessel used a water cannon “to block, harass and interfere” with Philippine resupply boats at the Second Thomas Shoal about 200 km west of Palawan province, another hotspot of Sino-Philippine tensions. Both Scarborough Shoal and the Second Thomas Shoal fall within the boundaries of a massive territorial map that China claims gives it legitimacy over most of the South China Sea.
Consequently, fishermen from Bagong Bayan, Palawan, who used to fish at the resource-rich Second Thomas Shoal, were now afraid to fish there due to the huge presence of Chinese vessels. The Philippine Coast Guard believed these Chinese vessels were maritime militia, a special force that patrolled the contested waters together with the Chinese Coast Guard.
“In the last decade the Chinese presence has increased measurably, including Chinese maritime militia, coast guard and Chinese navy,” said Maurice Phillip “MP” Albayda, a counselor at the municipality of Kalayaan, an island chain that is part of the Palawan province, in remarks to Radio Free Asia.
“At the same time, the number of Filipino boats has decreased, because of the fear that they’re going to get bullied or intimidated by Chinese vessels.”
On September 22, 2023, the Chinese Coast Guard installed a 300-meter-long floating barrier anchored by metal chains, located on the southeast side of the Scarborough Shoal, to stop Philippine fishing boats from access to the area.
The Philippines is among various Southeast Asian claimants that have overlapping claims to the South China Sea. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr pledged to defend his country’s maritime territory and fishermen. “We’re not looking for trouble,” he said on September 29, 2023. “We don’t want to engage in a heated argument, but we’re firm in our defense of Philippine territory.”
Since 2023, Manila has promised to deploy more vessels to patrol and protect its fishermen amid Beijing’s moves to assert its territorial claims with a new expansive map, military outposts, artificial islands and vessels in disputed waters. However, given the superiority of Chinese military strength, local fishermen continue to bear the brunt of Beijing’s military muscles.
Photo credit: iStock/ Angel Jr Baldapan
