Philippines delivers fuel to fishermen at Scarborough Shoal as Chinese navy and coast guard ships watch

The Philippines carried out a government mission on 27 October to hand out fuel to Filipino fishermen working near Scarborough Shoal, while China Coast Guard and People's Liberation Army Navy ships operated in the approaches to the shoal, the Philippine Coast Guard said on 28 October.

The coast guard's spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela, said the mission ended without any untoward incident. According to the coast guard, the Chinese ships did not interfere with the delivery.

How the mission ran

The fuel was delivered by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessel MV Mamalakaya. The coast guard escorted it with the multi-role response vessel BRP Malapascua, hull number MRRV-4403, and sent its Islander 251 aircraft on a maritime domain awareness flight over the area to watch over the fishermen and the fisheries ship.

Coast guard commandant Vice Admiral Rommel Supangan ordered the sea and air deployment to secure the run. When the fisheries vessel arrived, between 40 and 50 Filipino fishing boats already working the traditional fishing ground came alongside and lined up to take on fuel, the coast guard said.

The delivery was made under a government programme that buys fishermen's fresh catch at sea and supplies them with fuel and ice. Manila says the aim is to cut the cost of their trips and help them keep up a presence in the West Philippine Sea, the name it uses for the parts of the South China Sea it claims.

What the patrol plane saw

During its flight, the Islander crew logged China Coast Guard and PLA Navy vessels in the approaches to the shoal, as well as a Chinese research vessel operating close to it. The coast guard said it is continuing to monitor and document those ships. Its statement did not give the number of Chinese vessels or identify them.

A contrast with July

The quiet outcome differs from a similar fuel run at the shoal in July. On 23 and 24 July, China Coast Guard ships fired water cannon at Philippine government vessels on two consecutive days, and China's coast guard said at the time that it had driven off two Philippine vessels it accused of violating Chinese sovereignty.

China has held effective control of Scarborough Shoal since a standoff with the Philippines in 2012 and has kept ships stationed there since then. The shoal lies about 124 nautical miles off Masinloc in Zambales province, inside the Philippine exclusive economic zone. A 2016 arbitral ruling found that China had unlawfully blocked Filipino fishing at the shoal, a decision Beijing has never accepted.

Why it matters

The run shows how Manila is keeping a government presence at a shoal that China's coast guard and navy patrol around it. The Philippines has now sent fisheries fuel runs to the shoal in July and again in October, and this time Chinese ships watched rather than intervened, even though they remained on station in the approaches.