Taipei attaches fisher safeguards and return clause to Philippine gift cutter

Taiwan Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling told the Legislative Yuan on 2 October 2026 that a planned gift of a decommissioned Coast Guard cutter to the Philippines will remain a civilian search-and-rescue and marine-conservation asset and will not be used to enforce Philippine law against Taiwanese fishing boats, Central News Agency reported from the premier's policy-report session.

Kuomintang lawmaker Hsu Yu-chen pressed the cabinet during questioning, citing the 2013 Guang Da Xing No. 28 case in which Philippine enforcement personnel shot and killed a Taiwanese fishing-boat captain, and asked whether the donated hull could later be turned against Taiwanese fishermen operating in overlapping waters.

Kuan replied that the donation agreement is written to keep the ship civilian, bars it from being armed or assigned to military roles, and forbids its use for law enforcement against Taiwanese vessels, according to Central News Agency, Liberty Times and Newtalk.

If Manila breaches those terms, Taipei retains a withdrawal mechanism that allows it to cancel the contract and demand return of the hull, Kuan told lawmakers, framing the claw-back as a binding safeguard rather than a political slogan.

Premier Cho Jung-tai said first-island-chain maritime cooperation supports Indo-Pacific stability and that the government will meet its responsibilities under the agreed conditions, while stressing that how the pact is executed after transfer will determine whether fishermen stay protected.

Cho also said fishermen's safety clauses are a priority for public explanation and that domestic assessments of Coast Guard hull demand and rescue-ship allocation continue in parallel with the Philippines package.

Liberty Times identified the hull under discussion as the former Kinmen cutter, already earmarked for refurbishment before transfer under Taiwan-Philippines maritime cooperation programmes.

Newtalk's same-day account matched CNA and Liberty Times on the civilian-use promise, the ban on enforcement against Taiwanese boats, and the return clause, giving three independent Taiwanese outlets on the Legislative Yuan exchange.

The hearing sits inside a broader Taipei-Manila coast-guard cooperation track that has already drawn public attention because of regional gray-zone pressure and because older bilateral incidents still shape fishing-community trust.

For force and maritime-policy readers, the 2 October record is the clearest multi-source statement yet that the gift cutter carries explicit fisher-protection language and a contractual path to reclaim the ship if those limits are broken.

Officials did not publish the full treaty text on the floor, but the three outlets agree on the core operational limits: civilian employment only, no armament for military use, no enforcement against Taiwanese fishing boats, and return on breach.

Those limits matter for TaiwanDefence coverage because the transfer is framed in Taipei as a first-island-chain maritime-safety contribution, not as a combatant hull transfer, and because lawmakers explicitly tested that framing against the Guang Da Xing precedent.

Coverage across the cited outlets is consistent on the named officials, the Legislative Yuan setting, the Kinmen cutter identification in Liberty Times, and the claw-back language, providing a stable multi-source basis without unsourced claims.

Kuan also told lawmakers that protecting fishermen remains a core Coast Guard and Ocean Affairs Council duty and that the bilateral text is intended to be complete enough that Taiwanese crews retain a clear remedy if the gifted cutter is ever misused against them.

Taken together, the 2 October Legislative Yuan exchange converts earlier bilateral talking points about maritime cooperation into a same-day, on-record package of operational limits that independent Taiwanese newsrooms could corroborate within hours of the hearing.

This report was produced through TaiwanDefence’s automated publishing system and includes links to its supporting sources.