Philippine coast guard chases a fourth foreign fishing boat from Kota Island in three weeks

The Philippine Coast Guard said it drove an unauthorized foreign fishing vessel out of the territorial sea of Kota Island, a Philippine-held feature in the Spratly Islands, on Sunday, Oct. 18. In a statement carried by the Philippine Information Agency, the coast guard said this was its fourth operation in three weeks to push foreign vessels away from the island.

According to the statement, High-Speed Response Boat HSRB-019 was on its way to Kota Island on Sunday morning when its crew spotted the fishing vessel about 1.75 nautical miles north-northwest of the island, well inside the 12-nautical-mile territorial sea. The boat moved in to reinforce two coast guard rubber boats that were already confronting the vessel.

The three boats stayed close to the fishing vessel and repeatedly ordered it by radio to leave the area. The coast guard said the vessel eventually withdrew without incident, after which the boats returned to the island. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, citing coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela, reported the same sequence. Neither account named the vessel or said which country it came from.

The coast guard linked the deployment of HSRB-019 to its effort to respond faster to intrusions around the island. It said that under its commandant, Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan, it would keep up its vigilance in the Kalayaan Island Group in close coordination with the Philippine Marine Corps. It added that the operation followed guidance from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to uphold the 2016 arbitral award and to defend the country's maritime territory and the rights of Filipino fishermen.

Sunday's encounter followed a run of incidents in the same waters. The coast guard said it drove Chinese Maritime Militia Vessel 9622 and its small boats away from Kota Island on Sept. 28 and again on Oct. 9. On Oct. 11, a joint operation by the coast guard, the Philippine Navy and the Philippine Marine Corps pushed five foreign fishing vessels out of the island's territorial sea.

In that Oct. 11 operation, according to an account published by the Philippine Canadian Inquirer, coast guard personnel spotted one vessel preparing to fish about 200 metres from the shoreline and another about one nautical mile west of the island, and both ignored radio warnings. Two rubber boats carrying six personnel went out to meet them, three more foreign vessels were seen approaching, and all five eventually moved beyond the 12-nautical-mile limit without incident.

The pressure has reached other Philippine-held features as well. On Oct. 15, the coast guard drove a Chinese fishing vessel, the Yuetaiyu 63168, and four small boats out of the territorial sea of Lawak Island, also in the Kalayaan group, the Philippine News Agency reported. Personnel stationed on that island used a rubber boat to document the anchored mother ship, which did not answer repeated radio challenges. Once its small boats had returned, it weighed anchor and left.

Kota Island is part of the municipality of Kalayaan in Palawan province. The coast guard said that under international law the Philippines exercises full sovereignty over the island's territorial sea, where no foreign vessel may fish without authorization, and that such fishing also breaks the Philippine Fisheries Code and the Philippine Maritime Zones Act.

The four Kota Island operations in three weeks, together with the Lawak Island case, show the coast guard relying on small boats and crews based on the islands themselves, with the navy and marines in support, to answer a repeated foreign presence close to the shoreline. The coast guard said it would continue to monitor the waters of the Kalayaan Island Group with the navy and marines and respond to any further unauthorized activity.