PCG Firm in Defending WPS After Chinese Aircraft Incident

Despite a close encounter between aircraft of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and the People's Liberation Army-Navy of China, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) declared it would sustain its efforts to assert the Philippines' sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea.

- GHIO ONG

Last Feb. 18, a PLA-Navy helicopter flew toward the portside of the BFAR's Cessna Caravan plane to a distance of nearly three meters.

PCG Commodore Jay Tarriela, the agency's spokesman on West Philippine Sea issues, denounced the "recklessness" of the Chinese aircraft, saying it "posed a serious risk to the safety of the pilots and passengers during the (maritime domain awareness flight)."

"In terms of the level of danger, for me this is the most dangerous," he said during a media briefing last Wednesday, noting the high level of danger caused by the Chinese aircraft.

He maintained that flying of Philippine aircraft particularly over Bajo de Masinloc, also called Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, was part of the Philippines' assertion of sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea covered by the country's 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.

Tarriela said it would be up to the Department of Foreign Affairs to file a diplomatic protest as a response to the incident report prepared and filed before the National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea.

"We may not expect China to change its behavior. We will keep on filing diplomatic protests, an important procedure that we need to do to tell the international community that we are against such aggression by China," he said.