Penalize Chinese poachers in Julian Felipe P3.3 billion

Interdict the 220 Chinese fishing vessels blockading Julian Felipe Reef in the Philippine exclusive economic zone. Philippine law requires so.

Their mere entry in the 200-mile EEZ is poaching, the Fisheries Code (RA 8550) states. Stopping there also violates innocent passage in international law.

The poachers face fines of up to $300,000 per vessel, or $66 million (P3.3 billion) for all 220. Section 87 demands $100,000 punitive plus $200,000 administrative penalties.

The three highest officers per vessel shall be imprisoned for six months. Their catch, gear and vessels must be confiscated. They can be additionally fined the value of their catch. Also if explosives, electrical or noxious stunners, poisons or fine mesh net are found onboard.

Filipinos severely are sanctioned for violation of the Code. Foreigners should be too. Punishment deters repeat offenders.

Julian Felipe (Whitsun) Reef lies 175 miles west of Palawan, well within Philippine EEZ, and outside China’s 650 miles away. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea grants coastal states sole use, jurisdiction and protection of their EEZs.

Apprehending, detaining and prosecuting are the duty of the Coast Guard, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and Department of Justice. All are under the Executive.

Past presidents enforced the law. Poachers were jailed without bail. Dozens of trawlers were impounded in Palawan, Mindoro and mainland Luzon. (With environmentalists and BFAR officials, I inspected two in Puerto Princesa Bay in 2007.) Some have been re-commissioned as Filipino patrol craft, others auctioned for domestic reuse or as scrap metal.

China has the world’s largest distant water fishing fleet. Each industrial-scale, steel-hulled trawler can haul in at least 12 tons of fish per day, Chinese publications report. The 220 vessels swarming Julian Felipe Reef can poach 2,640 tons, or 2,640,000 kilos.

The value of South China Sea fish capture in 2018 was $1,534 per ton, according to the Southeast Asia Fisheries Development Center. Going by that old figure, each Chinese trawler can poach $18,408 (P920,400) worth of fish at Julian Felipe Reef. The 220 vessels are capable of hauling away $4,049,760 (P202,488,000).

China menaces Filipino fishermen in their own EEZ in the West Philippine Sea. In Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal since 2012, Chinese coast guards have been driving them away with machineguns and water cannons. In Recto (Reed) Bank in 2019, a Chinese trawler rammed an anchored Filipino wooden boat then abandoned the 26 fishermen thrown overboard. In the first quarter of that year too, about 620 Chinese fisheries militia vessels took turns swarming Pagasa Island, Kalayaan, Palawan. Near Sandy Cay last January, three Chinese gunboats blocked a Filipino fishing craft from approaching from Pagasa.

Defenseless, Filipino fishers are even told by their officials to stay away from centuries-long fishing grounds. About 350,000 fishing families depend on the West Philippine Sea for livelihood.

The Philippine Coast Guard is the armed and uniformed service tasked with civilian law enforcement. It recently acquired several patrol craft and fighting equipment.

Unchallenged, the 220 Chinese fishing vessels can prelude the concreting of Julian Felipe into another Chinese island-fortress. Sighted since March 7, the trawlers form a phalanx along the boomerang-shaped sea feature.

Julian Felipe is in the center of Pagkakaisa (Union) Bank and Reefs in the Philippine EEZ. It forms a triangle with McKennan (Hughes) and Mabini (Johnson South) Reefs, both landfilled by China starting 2013. China is reinforcing control of Pagkakaisa, international maritime lawyer Jay Batongbacal, PhD, suspects. Thence, it can dislodge Vietnam from equally illegal outposts on Rurok (Sin Cowe) Island, Pagkakaisa (Lansdowne) Reef and Roxas (Collins) Reef.

Pagasa, 68 miles away, will be surrounded. Nearby Philippine reefs Zamora (Subi) and Kagitingan (Fiery Cross) earlier were paved with Chinese airstrips and seaports. Already, warships from Subi routinely threaten supply deliveries to civilians in Pagasa.

Manila has identified, denounced and diplomatically protested the 220 vessels as part of the People’s Liberation Army maritime militia. Recruited, armed and equipped for spying and harassment, the Chinese fishers are part of Beijing’s “gray zone tactics” of intensifying its grab of neighbor-states’ EEZs. Beijing ignores The Hague arbitral court’s outlawing in 2016 of its “nine-dash line” that encroaches the seas of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam. The sea boundary has no coordinates and is based on concocted history.

There has been no word from President Rody Duterte about the virtual invasion of Julian Felipe. His spokesman, when asked if the situation can lead to a military standoff with China, said, “I don’t think so because we have a close friendship. Everything can be discussed by friends and neighbors.” Duterte has shelved The Hague arbitral victory for $40 billion in Chinese loans and aid, of which only 0.5 percent came. Two years ago he conceded: “When [President] Xi Jinping says, ‘I will fish,’ who can prevent him?” Discounting legal and diplomatic moves, he added, “If I send my Marines to drive away the Chinese fishermen, I guarantee you not one of them will come home alive.”

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