Chinese ships shadowed Philippine-United States vessels involved in the joint maritime patrol in the West Philippine Sea.

“Well there was shadowing so we monitored a Chinese vessel shadowing the maritime joint maritime patrol but there were no aggressive actions by China,” Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Romeo Brawner Jr. told reporters on Thursday.

“No challenge, no dangerous maneuvers, so they are just following us, shadowing,” he added.

Brawner said based on the latest report that he received the two Philippine Navy and one US vessel were conducting joint maritime patrol off the waters of northern Palawan when they were shadowed by a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessel on Thursday morning.

“At around 10:15 am today, two of our ships were sailing together with a US ship, at the vicinity 30 nautical miles off the Malampaya natural gas of our power platform, northern Palawan,” he said.

“They were sailing in northern Palawan this morning at 10:15 am (when) they observed a Chinese PLA Navy shadowing the vessels at approximately a distance of 6.5 nautical miles away,” he added.

Col. Xerxes Trinidad, AFP public affairs office chief also confirmed that a Chinese PLAN vessel also shadowed and monitored the USS Gabrielle Gifford and BRP Conrado Yap during the passing exercise on Wednesday.

Despite the shadowing incident, Brawner expressed belief that the three-day joint maritime patrol between US and Philippines from Nov. 21 to 23 was “very successful”.

“So far we believe that the joint maritime and air patrol between the Philippines and the United States have been very successful in the sense that there are no untoward incidents,” he said.

“We were able to achieve the objectives that we have set forth for this joint maritime and air patrols, so we saw how we could operate closely with our allies the United States and we see how, if you see the formations we were able to achieve,” he added.

Brawner also reiterated that the joint maritime patrol “is not meant to agitate China” and is “not connected” to the rotation and resupply (RORE) mission in Ayungin Shoal.

“No it is not meant to agitate China, our only objective is to make sure that we have interoperability with our ally the United States and also to impose that objective of making sure that we promote the rules based international order so we follow all the (rule), in fact we did not violate any law while we were sailing together or while we were flying together with them,” he said.

“This is not connect to our RORE but we will pursue still the RORE operations, unilaterally, meaning it is just us without the US, so we will continue resupplying our troops not just in Ayungin shoal but all over the features that we are occupying so it will continue, actually this joint sail with the US is not related in our RORE,” he added. Robina Asido/DMS