Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has proposed the drafting of a fishing code of conduct among claimant countries in the South China Sea or the West Philippine Sea to prevent another alleged sinking of a Filipino vessel just like what happened at Recto Bank recently.
Lorenzana said that he voiced out his proposal during the Cabinet cluster meeting last Monday in Malacañang where the Recto Bank incident was discussed.
“What I was suggesting to our cluster is if we can sit with all the claimants there and come up with some fisheries code of conduct so that we can prevent this incident from happening again,” said Lorenzana.
The Philippines, China, Vietnam, and other neighboring countries have overlapping claims in some portions of the West Philippine Sea. In the past few years, China has become very aggressive in asserting its claims, even reclaiming some rock formations where they constructed facilities.
Lorenzana said the June 9 incident at Recto Bank, also known as Reed Bank, is a call for all the claimant-countries to sit down and discuss protocols for their fishermen.
He explained that while Recto Bank is within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines, the area is a traditional fishing ground for Chinese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and even Japanese.
“We can use this incident to come up with some fisheries agreement for the conduct of fishing,” said Lorenzana.
The Defense chief clarified that the Philippines has no sovereign rights over the Recto Bank, saying what the Philippines has is EEZ rights to exploit the area while maintaining freedom of navigation.
But while he was the first to publicly condemn the Recto Bank incident, Lorenzana now believes that what happened is just an accident.
“I think it is just an accident. Based on some of the information that we got from some of the crew, this is just an accident. Maybe they unintentionally hit it,” said Lorenzana.
“They did not help the 22 Filipino fishermen because there were a lot of vessels that the crew had spotted in the area and they feared that they would be mobbed,” he added. (Aaron Recuenco)