PCG says no lookout on Filipino ship before collision: Locsin

July 3, 2019

Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., said the investigation by the Philippine Coast Guard ( PCG) on the June 9 collision between a Filipino and Chinese fishing vessel at Recto Bank ''does not paint of our fishermen in the brightest lights.''  

“I got the Coast Guard report immediately. Our investigation was finished. It was exhaustive. It’s not, I got to tell you, it doesn’t paint our fishermen in the brightest lights,” Locsin told ANC in an interview.

Locsin said the PCG report found that only the cook was awake before the collision between Philippine fishing boat, Gem-Vir 1, and the Chinese vessel.

“Not that they’re wrong but they had no lookout, even the enemies of the President say you need an assigned lookout on a boat. They didn't (have any)," he noted.

“The cook was out there on deck. Everybody was asleep. And he looked up and said ‘there’s a boat coming’ and continued with whatever he was doing and he looked up again and said ‘it’s coming closer.’ And then he looked up again and he said ‘My God it’s gonna hit’ and he shouted,” Locsin said.

He said the cook "had a small light."

"Whether or not that light should have been sufficient to warn the oncoming Chinese vessel, I don't know," he said.

Locsin did not give more details.

The 22 Filipino crew were left at sea after their fishing boat was rammed and sunk by a Chinese vessel at Recto Bank. They were later rescued by a Vietnamese ship. The incident was reported by the Department of National Defense ( DND) on June 12.

The Filipino fishermen claimed the Chinese vessel hit their boat and abandoned them.

But after meeting Philippine officials recently, the fishermen said the collision could have been an accident.

Locsin said he will ask China to be careful in sending many vessels in disputed waters.

"I will not ask China to seek safe passage in the EEZ. Safe passage is a legal concept. What I'm gonna ask, as I've said it, be careful of swarming," Locsin stressed.

"If you swarm, then what happened in the Reed Bank was an accident waiting to happen so don't do it. But if you insist on doing it, this will keep deteriorating our friendship and I don't want to do that because China offers things that the rest of the world does not," he added.

Recto Bank, about 85 nautical miles from the nearest coast of Palawan province, falls within the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone of the Philippines under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. DMS