PUERTO PRINCESA, Palawan — Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff General Romeo Brawner Jr. said the outnumbered Navy troops fought “with their bare hands” before being overpowered by China Coast Guard (CCG) personnel during an encounter in Ayungin Shoal on Monday.

Brawner clarified reports that the soldiers let the Chinese board their rubber boats without a fight.

He said the Chinese brought bladed weapons such as knives and swords.

“That’s what they used to puncture our RHIBs (rigid-hulled inflatable boats) and rubber boats. We saw in the video how the Chinese threatened our personnel by pointing their knives at them. Despite this, our soldiers fought back,” said Brawner.

“They were seen pushing the Chinese Coast Guard away with their bare hands. They were preventing the Chinese from hitting them with bolos, machetes and other bladed weapons,” he said.

Brawner said he wants to remove the impression that the Naval Special Operations Group members let the Chinese take their equipment and destroy their boats.

“We didn’t let them, we fought,” he stressed.

Brawner, in a press conference here at the AFP Western Command, said the CCG’s actions, which resulted in a severe injury to one Navy crewman, “were not only reckless and aggressive but also illegal.”

“They had no right or legal authority to hijack our operations and destroy 15 vessels operating within our exclusive economic zone,” he said.

Brawner said the Chinese took the soldiers “disassembled” guns and destroyed everything on board, including the motors of the boats.

“So, our action now is we are demanding that the Chinese return our rifles and our equipment and we are also demanding that they pay for the damage that they caused,” he said.

Brawner compared the CCG’s actions to those of pirates on the seas.

“They will pay for it. Because we will not allow them, just like that, to destroy our equipment and take them. For me, this is piracy,” Brawner said.

“It’s piracy because they boarded our boats illegally. They got our equipment. Again, they are like pirates with such actions.”

The encounter happened near the BRP Sierra Madre, the country’s outpost on Ayungin Shoal.

“We had arms, but we did not use them because our objective was to bring supplies to our troops following international laws; our objective is also to prevent war. We don’t want war,” Brawner said.

A reliable source, however, had a different account of what transpired.

“Our soldiers were manhandled, the Chinese forces were extremely aggressive. Our troops showed tremendous restraint to avoid escalating the situation, but the Chinese were relentless, and we did not fight back,” the source said.

The source detailed how the Chinese soldiers struck the Filipino troops, pointed fingers at them, scolded, and yelled while brandishing a bolo.

“They were poking at our soldiers, hitting them, and brandishing a machete. The restraint shown by our soldiers was extraordinary,” the source said.

The Filipino soldiers attempted to negotiate the return of their firearms, but the Chinese forces refused and took the guns after storing them in a single bag.

This marked the first time a foreign military force had boarded a Philippine vessel within its territorial waters and confronted Filipino troops by grabbing their firearms.

In a report by China Daily, a state-owned media outlet, the CCG admitted to boarding the Philippine vessel, inspecting it, and driving it away for Ren’ai Reef (China’s name for Ayungin) in the South China Sea.

CCG spokesperson Gan Yu said the Philippines had violated its commitment by dispatching a supply ship and two inflatable boats to deliver supplies to the warship.

Yu claimed the supply ship “dangerously approached and deliberately collided with a normally navigating Chinese vessel.”