Philippine civilian vessel reaches Thitu Island without any incident

By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio, Reporter

A PHILIPPINE civilian ship carrying volunteers reached Thitu Island in the South China Sea without being harassed by Chinese vessels, according to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG).

The 115-meter-long M/V Kapitan Felix Oca anchored 8.3 kilometers northeast of Thitu Island, where it plans to hold a concert at sea as part of efforts to bolster Manila’s claim in the contested waterway, the PCG said in a statement on Wednesday.

Three Chinese Coast Guard ships were seen loitering near the island in the Spratlys after the vessel carrying volunteers from the Atin Ito (This is Ours) coalition moored on Wednesday afternoon, it said. One was seen as close as 3.1 kilometers west of the island.

“We made it, and we’ve reached our destination,” Akbayan Party President Rafaela David, Atin Ito’s mission commander, said in Filipino, based on a Facebook livestream.

The PCG said its 97-meter BRP Melchora Aquino and 44-meter BRP Malapascua completed its mission of escorting the Philippine ship to Thitu Island.

“[We] remain dedicated to ensuring the safety and security of the civilians participating in the civil society-led concert in the area,” it said.

The civilian sail will hold a “peace concert” and provide fuel to Filipino fishermen living on the island where the Philippines has a military outpost, Atin Ito said in a separate statement.

Thitu Island, which the Philippines calls Pag-asa, is the second-biggest island in the disputed Spratly Islands, which China, Taiwan and Vietnam claim in their entirety. The Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim parts of the islands.

Competing claims in the disputed waters have led to frequent confrontations between Philippine and Chinese forces, and both have tried to assert their sovereignty through constant naval patrols and infrastructure build-up on the islands they control.

Tensions between Manila and Beijing flared again last week after a Chinese coast guard ship fired a water cannon on a Philippine civilian ship and bumped against it at Sandy Cay, which is near Thitu Island.

There are about 22 Chinese maritime militia ships anchored in waters near the barren sandbars, the PCG said.

A fleet of fishing boats greeted the M/V Kapitan Felix Oca as it was sailing toward Thitu as a show of “unity and solidarity” from Filipinos living on the island, according to Atin Ito.

“Artists delivered their music amid the tense shadowing presence of Chinese vessels,” it added.

“Through music, we forged solidarity across nations and declared to the world that our seas must be zones of peace, not arenas of conflict,” Ms. David said in the statement.

Volunteers aboard the ship held a flag-raising ceremony and distributed 220 liters of fuel to fishermen who live there.

“In these contested waters, every drop is a declaration of support, and every delivery is an act of courage,” she added.

A small Filipino community has lived on the isolated island since 1971. Thitu lies 500 kilometers west of the major Philippine island of Palawan.

Last year, a civilian flotilla of boats organized by Atin Ito failed to sail close to Chinese-occupied Scarborough Shoal to avoid a clash with dozens of Chinese ships patrolling the area.

The atoll is a vast fishing lagoon near major shipping lanes that China seized in 2012 after a standoff with Philippine troops.

China claims nearly all of the potentially mineral- and oil-rich South China Sea based on a 1940s nine-dash line map that overlaps with the exclusive waters of the Philippines and neighbors like Vietnam and Malaysia.

A United Nations-backed tribunal in 2016 voided China’s sweeping claims for being illegal, a ruling that Beijing does not recognize.