Commodore Jay Tarriela on Friday confirmed that the floating barrier the Philippine Coast Guard cut in Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal was retrieved by China.

Tarriela, the PCG spokesperson on matters relating to the West Philippine Sea, said the barrier could no longer be found in the area that China seized in 2012 after a standoff with the Philippines.

A maritime domain awareness flight by the PCG and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources on Thursday morning found no traces of the barrier that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had ordered removed.

"For more than an hour, we flew in the vicinity of Bajo de Masinloc and monitored the presence of three Chinese Coast Guard vessels, two of which were inside the lagoon," Tarriela said.

"One Chinese maritime militia vessel was also seen there. Upon verification, there were no more floating barriers at the entrance to Bajo de Masinloc," he added.

He said, as expected, they were radio-challenged six times by the Chinese when they reached the area of Bajo de Masinloc, which a 2016 arbitral award ruled was a shared fishing ground among Filipinos, Chinese and Vietnamese fishermen.