3-6-2024 (MANILA) The Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) stands accused of seizing and discarding vital supplies meant for Filipino troops stationed at the remote Second Thomas Shoal, as well as allegedly impeding a medical evacuation operation for ailing soldiers.
According to a high-ranking military official who requested anonymity due to lack of authority to speak to the media, these incidents unfolded on May 19, when the Philippine Navy conducted an airdrop operation to deliver provisions to the BRP Sierra Madre, a dilapidated warship intentionally grounded in 1999 to assert Manila’s territorial claims over the shoal.
In a separate incident on May 24, the CCG reportedly used water cannons to drive away a Filipino fishing boat operating near the shoal, further exacerbating the already tense situation.
These allegations come in the wake of claims by Chinese state media that personnel aboard the Sierra Madre “pointed guns” at the CCG on the very same day, May 19. China Central Television, in a social media post on June 2, alleged that at least two men were spotted carrying guns on deck, pointing them in the direction of the CCG, accompanied by a video showing a masked man momentarily holding up a blurred black object resembling a rifle.
The anonymous military source provided a starkly different account, claiming that during the May 19 airdrop operation, the CCG deployed four rubber boats and seized some of the provisions, predominantly food supplies, which they scattered into the water, ensuring they could not be consumed. However, the source also alleged that some Chinese personnel helped themselves to a portion of the supplies.
Moreover, the source stated that on the same day, two CCG ships and four rubber boats purportedly harassed a medical evacuation operation intended to provide medical assistance to sick soldiers stationed on the Sierra Madre. One of the CCG ships allegedly blasted its water cannon directly at the outboard motor of one of the Philippine rubber boats, while another Chinese rubber boat rammed the rear of a Philippine boat, damaging its engine guard.
While a non-military source with knowledge of the operations corroborated the account of Chinese harassment, their version differed slightly, stating that the Chinese boats attempted to block the “transfer of personnel” between Philippine Navy boats and a small Philippine Coast Guard watercraft.
The Second Thomas Shoal, locally known as Ayungin, is a low-tide elevation that lies within the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone, approximately 194 kilometers off the coast of Palawan province. China, however, uses the contentious nine-dash line to assert its claim to sovereignty over the Scarborough Shoal, a submerged reef prized for its rich fish stocks, as well as the Second Thomas Shoal, where a small contingent of Filipino sailors reside aboard the Sierra Madre.
Regular rotation and resupply missions to the Sierra Madre have been subject to persistent Chinese harassment, with the last publicly known resupply mission in March resulting in a Filipino supply vessel being damaged by water cannons fired by the Chinese, causing injuries.
In 2016, an arbitral tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled that China’s sweeping claims to most of the South China Sea had no legal basis.
During the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defense summit held in Singapore on May 31, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made a thinly veiled reference to Beijing, denouncing what he called illegal, coercive, and aggressive actions in the South China Sea, which were undermining Southeast Asian countries’ vision for “peace, stability, and prosperity” in the region.
