MANILA: Vicente Berosil and other Masinloc fishermen had had a difficult decade since their livelihoods vanished when Chinese ships unexpectedly entered the waters they had known for generations as their own.
Berosil’s home, a small coastal municipality on Luzon, the Philippines’ main island, includes seas that are known to offer some of the best fishing in the region. Scarborough Shoal, located within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, is the richest. However, it is no longer accessible to Filipino fishers.
Scarborough, claimed by China as its ancestral territory since the 13th century, has been at the center of a rising conflict between Beijing and Manila, as well as the governments of other countries in the region, over the South China Sea, one of the world’s most productive and highly trafficked waterways.
Scarborough Shoal, the largest atoll in the sea, has been under Chinese control since 2012. When a Filipino warship tried to arrest people aboard Chinese boats allegedly poaching in Scarborough, it was met with opposition by Chinese marine surveillance vessels. The Chinese have closed off the shoal’s entrance, and Philippine boats can no longer reach there.
The Philippines has filed multiple diplomatic protests and 2016 won a larger case at The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration, which ruled that Chinese actions within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone violated Manila’s sovereign rights. However, China rejected the ruling, and its influence in the region has grown.
Fishermen to fish under the US security alliance
For the fishermen, hoping for a reversal has come in the form of a rising US military presence — as part of a decades-long security alliance that requires the Philippines and the US to defend each other’s territory in the case of an external attack.
The Philippines permitted US forces to expand their presence in the country and gave them access to new bases, including one in the South China Sea, in February. Manila’s envoy to Washington announced in May that joint Philippine-US maritime patrols could begin later this year. Meanwhile, the Filipino fishing community in the area is still struggling.
Rolando Fuentes, 48, began driving a tricycle for extra money because his fishing earnings were no longer sufficient to send his children to school. He hasn’t dared to fish near the shoal since the Chinese water-cannoned his boat, but America’s presence gives him some sense of safety.
