Rocky role Navy chief who ran ship aground to thwart China

More than 25 years ago the BRP Sierra Madre was sent off for one final, secret, voyage. In the darkness of night the Philippine navy ship sailed from Manila Bay into the remote waters of the South China Sea. Then, to the surprise of many, it ran aground. And it has not moved since.

- Rebecca Ratcliffe

"I did it as quietly as I could, so I would not raise any hackles among anybody," said Eduardo Santos, a retired vice-admiral, who was chief of the navy at the time. To him it was mission accomplished.

His plan had been to run the ship on to a small reef known as Second Thomas Shoal, one of the world's most fiercely contested maritime sites, without China knowing. The move would help the Philippines defend the area for decades.

"The first reaction was the Chinese ambassador knocking at my office early in the morning when they heard about it... I said, 'well, it was supposed to be on the way [to a mission] and it ran aground'," said Santos.

With hindsight, Santos, who is now 80, can smile about it, though he, more than most, is keenly aware of how delicate the issue remains.

If the shoal had been left unoccupied it would have been lost to Beijing, he said, because the Philippines was already facing a "creeping invasion" by China.

Beijing had already seized Mischief Reef, an atoll just 21 nautical miles away, despite this being within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone (EEZ), an area that stretches 200 nautical miles from a state's coast giving special rights to build or exploit resources in the area. Second Thomas Shoal is also with the Philippines' EEZ.

The Sierra Madre's last journey, in 1999, was a crucial milestone in the wider, long-running dispute over the South China Sea, a region that hosts one of the world's busiest trade routes, and which is thought to be rich in oil and gas deposits.

In the years since, the crumbling vessel's dogged presence at Second Thomas Shoal has enraged Beijing.

It has been at the centre of at least eight maritime confrontations in the past 18 months alone, as China has sought to disrupt missions delivering supplies to the shoal.