By Junex Doronio
MANILA — “When you’re weak, pretend that you’re strong. When you’re strong, pretend that you’re weak,” once advised Chinese legendary military genius Sun Tzu in his book “The Art of War” and this seems to be being applied when the number of Chinese vessels has increased in the West Philippines Sea amid “Balikatan” or the joint military exercise of the Philippines and United States.
On Tuesday (23 April 2024), Philippine Navy spokesperson for the WPS Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad disclosed that there’s a big increase in the number of Chinese maritime militia vessels in the WPS particularly in Bajo de Masinloc and Pag-asa Island.
“Our monitoring for the past two months for March and April has given us a fairly constant—from a low of 33 and a high of 69, and average of 60 various vessels of China,” Trinidad said in a press conference.
From April 16 to 22, the Philippine Navy noticed 124 Chinese vessels including three PLAN ships and 11 Chinese Coast Guard vessels were spotted in the WPS.
“Only for this week that we have seen a surge of up to a total of 124. Three People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and (China) Coast Guard having 10. This coincides with Balikatan. This upsurge is out of the normal,” Trinidad noted.
Bajo de Masinloc – 38 vessels (7 Chinese Coast Guard ships, 31 Chinese maritime militia vessels)
Ayungin Shoal – 31 (3 CCG ships, 28 CMM vessels)
Pag-asa Island – 46 (1 PLAN ship, 1 CCG ship, 44 CMM vessels)
Parola Island – 3 CMM vessels
Lawak Island – 1 PLAN ship
Panata Island – 4 CMM vessels
Patag Island – PLAN vessel
Trinidad further noted that the Chinese maritime militia vessels were anchored together.
(el Amigo/mnm)
