China Ship rammed Filipino Fisherman in Payaw off 78 NM Pangasinan- 1 dead, 4 missing 3 CD

A china ship with label "Hong Kong" rammed Filipino Fishing ship resting in "Payaw", a Philippine Government made artificial fish Sanctuary 78 Nautical Miles of Bolinao Pangasinan.

 A group of Filipino fishermen who were rescued after three days at sea has told authorities on Sunday (June 24, 2012) that their boat sank after being rammed by a Chinese vessel in the waters of Pangasinan Province.

The incident happened in the North of Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal) where the Philippines and China have been engaged in a tense standoff since April 2012.

Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) commandant Vice Admiral Edmund Tan said on Sunday that four of the eight crew members of fishing vessel F/B Axl John were rescued last Saturday morning along the vicinity off Magsingal town in Ilocos Sur after the said vessel was reportedly rammed by a much bigger unidentified shipping vessel while taking shelter along a nearby "Payaw", (better known as artificial fish sanctuary) last June 20 along the vicinity off Bolinao in Pangasinan.

Tan disclosed that the group of eight which all came from the town of Bolinao went out for fishing venture last June 18 despite rough seas based on the report given to them by the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Pangasinan.

Around 11:45 p.m. of June 19, F/B Axl John was already filled with too much amount of sea water due to big waves and caused the fishing vessel to be partially submerged few hours later but the crew fortunately manage to secure the vessel to a nearby "Payaw" located around 78-nautical miles northwest of Bolinao where they take shelter and started to conduct some repairs to their damage vessel.

The PCG chief explained that while the crew members are continuing to fix the damage suffered by the vessel, another vessel making its way northward suddenly rammed the "Payaw" and the Axl John causing all the eight fishermen onboard to drift into different direction.

The boat owner identified as Jonalyn Hondrado who is a resident of Barangay Concordia in Bolinao said she received a phone call from Posio Balmores, the boat operator saying that the Axl John was rammed by what appeared to be Chinese vessel while it was anchored at the said fish sanctuary.

On the boat with Balmores were Christopher Carbonel, Lino Damian, Boy Balmores, Fred Celino, Arnold Garcia, Domy delos Santos and Amante Resonable, residents of Barangay Concordia and Barangay Arnedo.

Both Posio and Boy Balmores together with Damian and  Christopher  Carbonel were rescued around 8 a.m. of Saturday in the vicinity waters of Magsingal in Ilocos Sur and they were brought at the Gabriela Hospital in Vigan City for immediate medical treatment.

Unfortunately, Christopher Carbonel, 32 year old from island village of Dewey in Bolinao died few minutes later while his other comrade is still under observation while the two others were discharged on Sunday and were brought back to Bolinao.

Meanwhile, still missing are Celino, Garcia, Delos Santos and Resonable.

Tan on Sunday dispatched one the agency's rescue vessel, Tug Boat-271 to conduct a follow-up search and rescue operations for the three missing crew along the vicinity off Ilocos Sur.

A Notice to Mariners was also issued in all the maritime vessels in the nearby areas to be on watch out for the said three fishermen and render immediate assistance when spotted.

Philippine authorities could not immediately verify if the vessel that hit the Axl John was Chinese.

Office of Civil Defense chief Benito Ramos was quoted by the Agence France Presse as saying the incident occurred north of Scarborough Shoal where the Philippines and China have been engaged in a tense stand-off since April.

"It's north of the Scarborough, though we could not determine how far in terms of distance or nautical miles," Ramos said.

Vice Admiral Tan meanwhile said that based on the statement given to them by one of the survivors, the vessel that rammed them was marked with blue and maroon paint both on the top and freeboard portions while a word "HONGKONG" was seen somewhere near the rear part of the ship.

The stand-off at Scarborough began in April, when a Philippine Navy ship tried to apprehend Chinese fishermen allegedly poaching in the shoal.

Chinese maritime security vessels prevented the PH Navy and Coast Guard from arresting the Chinese fishermen or confiscating their cargo of live sharks, clams and coral. –with additional reports from Agence France Presse.

The of recent clash is not exactly at the Panatag Shoal but it is in the northern part of the Shoal 78 Nautical miles in the waters of Bolinao, Pangasinan. The Philippines and China have been engaged in a tense standoff since April 2012 closer this area.

President Aquino earlier this month ordered two Philippine ships to pull out from the shoal during bad weather, a move that the Chinese said calmed tensions in the area.

While China said it would also ask its fishermen to leave the area, it stressed it had no intention of pulling out its bigger ships from there.

Last week, Aquino said the government will be re-deploying ships if Chinese vessels remain in the area.

"The guidelines are very clear," Aquino said.

"If there are vessels that are not ours, we have to send back our vessels. I have ordered them back (to port) because of the weather condition.

"If there's a presence in our territorial waters, then we will redeploy. But if there is no other presence or other vessels that might impinge on our sovereignty, there's no need to deploy," he clarified.

As of last week, there were still seven Chinese ships at the shoal, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

The dispute erupted in April after Chinese government vessels blocked Philippine authorities from arresting Chinese fishermen who were caught poaching and illegally harvesting endangered marine species like giant coral and sharks near the shoal.

Since then, both countries have maintained ships there to press their respective claims to the area.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, even waters close to the coasts of neighboring countries.

The Philippines says the shoal is well within its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

The shoal sits about 230 kilometers (124 nautical miles) off Masinloc town in Zambales. The nearest major Chinese landmass is 1,200 kilometers northwest of the shoal, according to Philippine Navy maps.

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WSJ: USA HAS BECOMING Unreliable Friend to Asian ALLIES

By MAX BOOT

The hardheaded case for President Obama's foreign policy rests on twin pillars: He is a tough commander in chief who does not hesitate to slay the nation's enemies, and he is "pivoting" from the Middle East to East Asia to confront the No. 1 threat to American power—China. There is some truth to both claims, but their essential hollowness has been revealed by a little-noticed defeat the U.S. has just suffered in a place few Americans have ever heard of.

Scarborough Shoal is a minuscule rock formation in the South China Sea that was discovered by an unlucky British East India Company ship, the Scarborough, which grounded there in 1784. This outcropping has been claimed by both China and the Philippines because of the rich fishing beds that surround it and the possibility of drilling for oil.

You would think that the Philippines would have the better claim, having built a lighthouse and planted its flag there in the 1960s. The shoal is only 140 miles west of Luzon, the main Philippine island, well within Manila's 200-mile "exclusive economic zone" as recognized under international law. It is 750 miles from the Chinese landmass.

Nevertheless, China is trying to assert its sovereignty over nine-tenths of the South China Sea based on tendentious historical "evidence" ranging from purported trips by Chinese explorers 2,000 years ago to a 1947 map issued by China's Nationalist government and recognized by no other state.

However unconvincing its claims, China is attempting to make good on them by sending fishing vessels and paramilitary patrol boats into disputed waters. In early April, a Philippine navy ship tried to prevent Chinese fishermen from poaching seafood from the area. Two armed boats from the Chinese Marine Surveillance Agency intervened and a standoff ensued.

Over the past two months, China sent more than 20 ships to the shoal, including as many as seven paramilitary vessels. The Philippines' interests were protected by two Coast Guard cutters. The standoff finally ended, at least for the time being, when the Philippines withdrew its vessels rather than risk losing them in an approaching typhoon.

The U.S. is bound to protect the Philippines under the terms of a 1951 treaty. Yet even as our ally was being bullied by China, the Obama administration adopted a pose of studied neutrality.

The Philippines has offered to submit the Scarborough Shoal dispute to an international tribunal under the Law of the Sea Treaty, which both Beijing and Manila have signed. But China refuses, no doubt knowing it would lose. The Chinese leadership must figure they have a better chance to assert their claim by force majeure because there is no way a weak state like the Philippines can stand up to them.

The Obama administration did not orchestrate an international campaign to rally support for the Philippines. And it failed to take the most dramatic step of all by not sending an American destroyer or other warship to Scarborough Shoal. Would doing so have risked war with China? Hardly. In fact China is the classic bully with a glass jaw.

For evidence, look no further than the tiny Pacific Island of Palau. In late March, at virtually the same time that the Scarborough Shoal standoff was beginning, a Chinese fishing vessel illegally entered Palau's waters. When the poachers ignored repeated demands that they leave an area designated as a shark sanctuary, police from Palau's Fish and Wildlife Division opened fire, trying to sink the offending vessel.

The result: one fisherman dead and 25 captured. A couple of weeks later, under the terms of a deal with China, the poachers were fined $1,000 each and flown back home. The Chinese must have been furious, but their diplomat on the scene had nothing to say except "it is a good outcome."

No one is suggesting that either the Philippine or U.S. navies should have opened fire over the Scarborough Shoal dispute. But it is a sad day when Palau (population 20,000) is more assertive in standing up to Chinese aggression than the United States of America. The nations of Asia are watching carefully and making their calculations accordingly. In their eyes, the U.S. just became a less reliable friend.

Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the forthcoming "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present" (Liveright).

Wall Street Journal Opinion

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Philippine external debt ratio goes down but total foreign debt rises

The external debt ratio of the Philippines, or the total foreign debt taken as a percentage of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), has dropped in the first quarter of this year.

In a press statement issued on Friday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the country's central bank, said the external debt ratio was down to 27.4 percent from January to March this year from the 29.5 percent registered for the same period last year.

However, the BSP said that in absolute terms, the outstanding external debt of the Philippines in the first quarter rose to 62.9 billion U.S. dollars, up by 3.3 percent from 60.9 billion U.S. dollars as of the same period last year.

The BSP explained that despite the increase in the absolute amount of debt incurred by the government and the private sector for the first quarter, the debt ratio dropped because the growth of GDP in the first quarter was much faster. The country's GDP grew by 6.4 percent in the first quarter, a big jump from the 3.7 percent full-year growth in 2011.

According to BSP officials, the country's outstanding foreign debt grew because of an increase in investments.

"The increase is due largely to 2.3 billion U.S. dollars net availments (excess of borrowings over repayments) as investment and business activities by both public and private sector entities escalated due to the upbeat business sentiment," the BSP said.

Despite the higher debt level, major external debt indicators remain at prudent and comfortable levels in the first quarter, the BSP added.

The National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), the Philippine government agency tasked to monitor and evaluate all economic data, said that the mix of indicators used to forecast economic developments points to sustained growth for the country in the second quarter of 2012.

After a decline in the third quarter of 2011, the composite leading economic indicators, or LEIs, accelerated over the next three consecutive quarters, strongly indicating a continuation of positive outlook for the country's economy, NSCB said.

In a report posted on its website, the NSCB said that the LEIs grew 0.125 in the second quarter of the year from a revised 0.064 in the first quarter.

NSCB Secretary General Romulo A. Virola said growth in LEIs hinted at better prospects for business and, thus, economic expansion for the rest of the year.

Of the 11 indicators that make up the composite LEI, seven contributed positively in the second quarter of 2012, the NSCB said.

The LEI System, or LEIS, was developed by the NSCB and the National Economic and Development Authority to serve as basis for short-term forecasting of macroeconomic activity in the country.

The NSCB has also estimated that as of the end of last year, every Filipino owed 51,675 pesos (1,200 U.S dollars), to domestic and foreign creditors.

The Philippines has now a population of more than 95 million.

Despite its huge debt burden, the Philippines managed to lend 1 billion U.S. dollars to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Malaca?ang, the seat of the Philippine government, said that it was an obligation on the part of the Philippines to help countries in dire need of funding through the (IMF) as it brushed off criticisms that it was improper for the government to lend money when it needs funds for programs to alleviate poverty and hunger in the country.

Edwin Lacierda, President Benigno Aquino's spokesperson, justified the move by saying that the Philippines had been a recipient of IMF assistance for the past 40 years.

"Now that we have been considered a creditor nation, we feel it is our obligation to assist those nations who require funding from IMF," Lacierda said in a press briefing.

Lacierda said that contribution of 1 billion U.S. dollars to IMF's standby fund of 456 billion U.S. dollars "would also help in stabilizing the crisis that's going on in Europe."

"It is our responsibility; it is part of our obligation (to the) IMF who has assisted us during our times of crisis in the Philippines," Lacierda said.

In a separate statement, BSP Governor Amando Tetangco said the Philippines will get returns from the loan it extended to the IMF.

Tetangco said that for nearly 40 years until 2006, the Philippines itself was a net borrower from the IMF. "We finally fully paid our loans to IMF in December 2006 as the implementation of continuing reforms has made our economy stronger," he said.

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