Chinese fishing fleet anchored off Basilan to avoid Hagupit allowed to sail home - Navy

From InterAksyon (Dec 9): Chinese fishing fleet anchored off Basilan to avoid Hagupit allowed to sail home - Navy

A Chinese fishing fleet on its way home from Indonesia anchored off Basilan Monday to avoid running into typhoon Hagupit, which was battering southern Luzon, and has been allowed to sail home, the Philippine Navy said.

Captain Giovanni Carlo Bacordo, deputy commander of Naval Forces Western Mindanao and commander of Naval Force 61, said the Chinese fleet -- 18 fishing boats with 14 to 16 crewmembers each -- is scheduled to sail home Tuesday afternoon through the Basilan Strait, then the Sulu Sea and Balabac Strait, exiting through the West Philippine Sea and the South China Sea, which the officer said was “their pre-plotted course.”

Bacordo said Naval forces and personnel of the Bureaus of Immigration and of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources had also boarded and inspected the Chinese vessels and found everything, including the foreigners’ papers, in order.

The officer said Joint Task Group Basilan had reported that the Chinese vessels had anchored off Langkil Island in Basilan, prompting the Navy command in Zamboanga City to dispatch patrol boats to check.

Bacordo explained that, while foreign vessels can sail through the country’s waters by claiming innocent passage, this “does not include stopping and anchoring unless by force majeure … which they invoked … kasi nga sa bagyo (because there was a storm).”

“That is legal” under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Bacordo added.

He added that the Chinese also possessed a note verbale from the Department of Foreign Affairs allowing them to pass through Philippine waters along the course they had plotted, although he stressed that this was not necessary under the “innocent passage” doctrine.

He said a Navy gunboat guarded the fleet overnight as the foreigners’ papers were checked in Zamboanga City “kasi naka-anchor na lang sila (because they were anchored there) … these are foreigners in our area so our task (is) to secure the maritime environment for both Filipinos and foreigners and we know that’s not a very friendly area.”

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/100805/chinese-fishing-fleet-anchored-off-basilan-to-avoid-hagupit-allowed-to-sail-home---navy