The Armed Forces of the Philippines said it considers "alarming" the latest encounter between Filipino fishermen and the China Coast Guard personnel in Bajo de Masinloc (the southeast entrance of Scarborough Shoal) in the West Philippine Sea. 

However, the Philippines will still resort to a diplomatic and peaceful approach in addressing China’s aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea. 

“[We consider it alarming kasi ‘yun na nga, lumalapit na ng lumalapit ‘yung mga incidents. But with Command Conference that we had — there was a guidance by the President that we also try to see different approaches on how we handle the situation,” AFP spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said in a media interview on Monday. 

Padilla said it is up to the AFP’s ground commanders to exert the necessary moves actions to prevent the harassment of Filipinos by foreign nations in its areas of jurisdiction.

“So in any situation, the armed forces will look into that. As we said, we do not want to micro-manage our ground commanders. So they will determine [such] actions,” she said. “Of course, the whole AFP is there to support.”

In a television interview, PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea Commodore Jay Tarriela confirmed the veracity of the reported encounter between the Filipino fishermen with the China Coast Guard in Bajo de Masincloc (Scarborough Shoal) on 12 January.

“It was the Chinese coast guard personnel who harassed and drove away Filipino fishermen, but before they were even allowed to leave the vicinity of the Bajo de Masinloc, they were first instructed to return the sea shells they had gathered before leaving,” he said on the TV program ANC Headstart on Monday.

Tarriela said the PCG will be sending the completed report to the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea — for the concerned government agencies, specifically the Department of Foreign Affairs, to take action on the matter. 

Asked as to why there’s Philippine Navy personnel sighted during the incident, Padilla explained: “We continue our regular mission, but of course, sa lawak din po ng karagatan (due to the extent of the ocean), we cannot really tell time in time the certain locations in our seas.)

“In any incident that we had, we will fortify our missions accordingly,” she added. 

Padilla said the AFP will be relentless in conducting regular maritime patrols in the country’s EEZ in WPS amid the presence of CCG. 

“We will assure the public that we will continuously be doing our regular maritime operations in our territorial waters," she noted.

Meanwhile, Tarriela said Marcos specifically instructed the PCG, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to bring their vessels to Bajo de Masinloc “despite the presence and effective control of China in maintaining Chinese coast guard in the area” to ensure the protection of the Filipino fishermen against any threat. 

“But in that particular incident that, there’s no Coast Guard and BFAR assets deployed there. I am to very honest with you — initial results of the rotation deployment for us to optimize our Coast Guard vessel. At this point forward, we are reaching out to the BFAR,” he said. 

Tarriela added the PCG presence in the WPS should be supplemented by the BFAR vessels. 

“In those instances that our coast vessels [are] patrolling in other areas of the WPS, we are hoping that the BFAR can be able to deploy their vessels on those times that we are not there,” he said.

Tarriela confirmed that CCG is “basically patrolling” Bajo de Masinloc.