A China-flagged vessel that ran aground near Pag-asa Island in Kalayaan town, located in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), has been successfully removed and towed away by responding ships on Saturday.
Kalayaan Sangguniang Bayan member and vice mayor-elect Maurice Philip Albayda said the vessel was retrieved at around 5:30 p.m. by a China Coast Guard (CCG) ship and two other accompanying ships.
Larry Hugo, a fisherman residing on Pag-asa Island, reported seeing the vessel grounded approximately two nautical miles from the island around noon on Saturday.
“It was removed. Three other ships responded. So, it took approximately five hours before it was pulled away. There was one CCG and two maritime militia vessels,” he said, referring to the vessels that towed the grounded ship.
According to Hugo, the Chinese vessel ran aground near Pag-asa Island in Kalayaan, West Philippine Sea at noon. They saw the vessel about two miles east of Pag-asa Island. The Philippine Coast Guard and Philippine Navy arrived at the site to assess the situation.
Hugo also voiced concerns that the incident could pave the way for the establishment of a foreign outpost in the area. “They (China) should remove it right away because they might do what something similar to 57 Ayungin,” he said.
He was referring to the artificial island constructed in Mischief (Panganiban) Reef near Ayungin Shoal, where the Philippine Navy vessel BRP Sierra Madre was also grounded, serving as a military outpost of the Philippines.
Captain Ellaine Rose Collado, Public Affairs Officer of the Western Naval Command, said residents of Pag-asa Island reported seeing the grounded vessel—resembling those used by the Chinese maritime militia—around 3 p.m. on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Department of National Defense (DND) said it will construct an airstrip and a Navy station on Balabac Island in Palawan, one of the nine Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites agreed upon by the Philippines and the United States.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said the runway will be jointly used by the Philippine Air Force (PAF) and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP).
“Balabac is a strategic location for the Philippines because an international sea lane in the southwestern Philippines passes through it,” Teodoro said, referring to Balabac Strait, which connects South China Sea with the Sulu Sea. “The runway will provide greater connectivity for the people.”
Balabac Island is located in the southernmost part of Palawan. It borders the WPS and is only 140 nautical miles from Panganiban Reef, a low-tide elevation within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines that was reclaimed and turned into a heavily militarized artificial island by China.
In 2023, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced that he had approved the inclusion of Balabac Island as among the four new EDCA sites in the country, on top of five sites identified in 2016.
EDCA is a bilateral agreement between Manila and Washington that allows for increased rotational presence of US troops and equipment in “agreed locations” within the Philippines to support security cooperation, joint training, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts.
