PHL boosts Bantay Dagat patrols in South China Sea

By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio, Reporter

THE Philippines is beefing up its civilian fishery patrol force to boost maritime monitoring as Chinese activity intensifies in the South China Sea, officials said on Monday.

Manila’s fishery bureau is reviewing the state of its civilian patrol vessels and preparing guidelines to formalize the fleet’s operations, Presidential Assistant for Maritime Concerns Andres C. Centino said.

“Efforts are under way to complete a comprehensive inventory of Bantay Dagat (sea guards) units, where they will be issuing informed guidelines governing their creation, their adaptation and setting the standards of operations,” he told a security forum in Manila, referring to the civilian patrol fleet in Filipino.

The sea patrol is managed by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and is composed of volunteer teams, mostly fishermen, tasked with a round-the-clock watch of the Philippines’ coastal waters.

More frequent civilian patrols could help authorities improve awareness of Philippine waters as the Southeast Asian nation grapples with lingering tensions in the strategic waters, said Rear Admiral Roy Vincent T. Trinidad, navy spokesman for the South China Sea.

“Our maritime domain awareness is an all-source effort,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the forum. “This will add up to the 360-monitoring that we are doing.”

China claims nearly all of the strategic waterway via a U-shaped, 1940s nine-dash line map that overlaps with the exclusive waters of the Philippines and neighbors like Vietnam and Malaysia, irking Manila as Beijing continues to claim sovereignty by deploying an armada of coast guard and navy ships.

Tyler Pavlowich, a maritime research associate at the University of Rhode Island, said some Filipino fishers have extended their volunteer work by helping spot Chinese vessels operating within the country’s 200-nautical-mile (370-kilometer) exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

“We brought in commercial fishers as an important partner… so we used that to paint a more complete maritime domain awareness picture,” he told the forum.

Fishermen play a key role in boosting maritime awareness by sharing maritime information since the government can’t maintain extensive awareness of Philippine waters on its own, Mr. Centino said.

“Maritime domain awareness, as recognized in both national and international practice, requires not only technological investment and interagency coordination, but also timely information from those who frequent these areas,” he said.

Civilian fishers also help identify threats at sea, including Chinese vessels acting aggressively within the country’s EEZ, he added.

“The National Maritime Center, together with the Fish Rights Program, provided radio equipment to the fishermen so that they can have the means to report what’s happening,” Mr. Centino said.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila did not immediately reply to a Viber message seeking comment.

The Philippines and China have been at loggerheads near disputed features in the South China, with Manila accusing China’s coast guard of aggression and Beijing furious over what it calls repeated provocations and territorial incursions.

Manila has also accused China of maintaining a maritime militia to bolster its presence in the South China Sea. Beijing has maintained that they are civilian ships.