Coast Guard: Up to DFA, Palace to decide PCG presence in Panatag Shoal

By AMANDA FERNANDEZ
GMA News

 The Philippine Coast Guard on Thursday said it will be up to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Malacañang to decide whether to allow the deployment of Coast Guard personnel to Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.

In a phone interview with GMA News Online, Coast Guard spokesperson Armand Balilo said due to political implications, they cannot decide on the matter.

Balilo said this after ACT-Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio proposed that Coast Guard personnel should be deployed to Panatag Shoal after the Chinese Coast Guard fired water cannons at some Filipino fishermen on January 27, 2014.

Tinio said the Coast Guard’s presence at the shoal might deter Chinese authorities from harassing Filipino fishermen in the disputed waters.

However, Balilo assured that the Coast Guard is on standby or “all the time ready” for any instructions from the Palace or the DFA.

For his part, Foreign Affairs spokesperson Raul Hernandez said the order would have to come from Malacañang.

“Each agency has its own mandate. Each gets its orders from the Palace. Maritime surveillance and law enforcement activities are undertaken by security agencies,” Hernandez said in a text message to GMA News Online.

‘Deliberate provocations’

On Monday, Armed Forces chief Gen. Emmanuel Bautista revealed that a Chinese coast guard vessel drove away two Filipino fishing vessels from the area last January 27 by firing water cannons at them.

President Benigno Aquino III has demanded an explanation from China regarding the incident and directed the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to file a “diplomatic message.”

The Chinese Embassy in Manila, however, rejected the Philippine protest and declared it has “indisputable sovereignty” over the waters where the incident occurred.

Meanwhile, a Reuters report said China has accused the Philippines of “deliberate provocations” over the incident.

China’s foreign ministry, which has already rejected the complaint, said its boats had every right to respond to “provocative” acts in its territory.

China suspected the aims and identities of several Philippine fishing boats that recently appeared in the waters around the disputed shoal, as some of them appeared to just “hang around,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

The Philippine boats ignored calls from the Chinese ships to leave, with some aboard even adopting a “provocative posture of appearing to spoil for a fight” in activities showing “a strong level of organization and confrontation,” Hua said.

“In the face of this seriously provocative behavior, China maintained utmost restraint, and as multiple warnings failed, could not but take the minimum measures to carry out expulsions, which caused no harm to the Philippine fishing boats or personnel,” she told a daily news briefing.

PHL exclusive economic zone

The Philippine government has declared that the shoal, which is facing the South China Sea, is within the country’s exclusive economic zone as mandated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea – an agreement signed by 163 nations, including China.

Scarborough, located 124 nautical miles from Masinloc town in Zambales and 472 nautical miles from China’s nearest coastal province of Hainan, is called Panatag or Bajo de Masinloc by the Philippines and referred to as Huangyan Island by the Chinese. —KG/RSJ, GMA News

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/350360/news/nation/coast-guard-up-to-dfa-palace-to-decide-pcg-presence-in-panatag-shoal