Joint allied resupplies of Ayungin eyed in wake of Chinese ramming

The Armed Forces of the Philippines is to mount joint allied resupply missions for Marines stationed in Ayungin Shoal. Troop rotations-reprovisions (RORE) no longer will be done by civilian bancas but by warships.

BRP Sierra Madre, which the Navy beached on Ayungin (Second Thomas) in 1999, will be refurbished once and for all. Joint allied patrols will also dot in the entire West Philippine Sea.

Those are Manila’s calibrated responses to China’s ramming Sunday of two Filipino seacraft near the shoal that Beijing aims to annex. Manila will hold fast to the sea feature instead of deserting it as Beijing wants.

A China Coast Guard gunboat 110 meters long, about four basketball courts, bumped a small wooden outrigger loaded with food for the nine Marines at Ayungin. Then, a Chinese maritime militia steel trawler scraped a Philippine Coast Guard craft. Five other CCG gunboats tried to prevent the RORE while People’s Liberation Army-Navy warships lingered nearby.

Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said the AFP is proposing joint resupply missions with allied navies. “We are studying it. That’s another option,” he told the Kapihan sa Manila Bay media forum Wednesday, Oct. 25th.

“But what we need is regularity [of joint patrols],” he added. “We don’t want to be dependent on which [allied] ships will arrive [for joint patrols].”

Brawner said the Navy can also resume using its armed vessels for ROREs. But this can be tricky because Ayungin surrounding waters are shallow.

Navy rigid-hulled rubber boats used to conduct monthly ROREs in the 2000s, but Chinese combat helicopters harassed and endangered Filipino sailors. Twice US fighter jets flew overhead to avert Chinese provocations.

The Philippine Navy shifted to contracting private bancas, backed by the civilian Coast Guard. Still, China countered with military grey zone operations, using its coastguards and maritime militia that report to the Chinese Communist Party-Military Commission.

Brawner said the Philippines is well within its rights to repair the rusting World War II-vintage BRP Sierra Madre. It remains a commissioned Navy ship although deliberately grounded on Ayungin to prevent Chinese occupation after the latter grabbed nearby Panganiban (Mischief) Reef in 1995, Brawner recalled.

“BRP Sierra Madre is in Ayungin Shoal,” he said. “We did not interfere when they militarized the artificial islands. Now they’re being rattled when they’re called out. That’s a huge imbalance.”

The AFP chief anticipates China to  escalate menacing of Filipino vessels in the WPS. “We fear that in the future, their ships will deliberately hit our vessels,” he said.

He noted: “We are the ones always trying to avoid any collision. We stop our ships each time they conduct these dangerous maneuvers, crossing the path of a vessel that was moving forward. That’s very dangerous and should not be done. It’s not allowed under maritime rules.”

Defense Sec. Gilberto Teodoro announced on government television Wednesday the increase of Navy and Coast Guard patrols in the WPS. Alongside those will be joint freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) with the US, Japan, Canada and Australia.

Navies of Singapore, Malaysia, India and France previously had expressed interest in FONOPS in the WPS, which comprises the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone. As well, FONOPS in the high seas, or portions of the South China Sea which do not fall within any state’s EEZ but baselessly, illegally claimed by China as its own.

The Philippine Navy has new patrol vessels, including two frigates procured from Korea, a Korean-donated corvette, four Indonesian-made support craft and two large US Coast Guard cutters repurposed as navy warships.

Japan added 10 new craft to the fleet of the PCG, which is procuring 40 more from a maker in Cebu.

Aside from naval options, international maritime lawyer Jay Batongbacal, PhD, suggests that Malacañang file for damages sustained by Filipino boatmen and their craft due to Chinese ramming. He cited similar cases won by victims at the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea.

He proposes that Malacañang also convince other countries to shun Chinese seafood poached in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. PLA-equipped and -escorted Chinese trawlers invade fish-rich waters of Palau, Ecuador, Senegal, Gambia and Guinea Bissau.

In claiming the entire SCS, Beijing has authorized the CCG to arrest, board and fire at vessels in its illegally claimed portions. Yet it allows its fishermen to engage in IUU (illegal, unreported, unregulated) fishing.

*      *      *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8 to 10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

Follow me on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/Jarius-Bondoc