The Philippines will continuously deploy vessels to the contested Sabina Shoal in the South China Sea, the nation’s Coast Guard said after a Philippine ship returned to port after a five-month deployment there.
“We will sustain presence over these waters,” Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela said in mid-September 2024.
The Coast Guard vessel BRP Teresa Magbanua deployed to the shoal in April to monitor what Manila suspects to be the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) artificial island-building in the area.
The vessel will resume its mission after undergoing maintenance and resupply, joining other Coast Guard and military assets “as defenders of our sovereignty,” said Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, chairman of the National Maritime Council.
In late August, Philippine officials said a PRC coast guard vessel rammed the Teresa Magbanua three times without provocation, damaging the Philippine vessel.
Sabina Shoal is 150 kilometers west of the Philippine province of Palawan and well within the country’s exclusive economic zone.
“Regardless of what size of vessel, regardless of how many vessels, the main objective and the commitment of the commandant … is to make sure that at any one time, there will be a Coast Guard presence in the shoal,” Tarriela said.
The PRC claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, overlapping with the maritime zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. In 2016, an international tribunal dismissed Beijing’s expansive claims as legally invalid, but the PRC continues to disregard the ruling.
