February 25, 2014 — MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine government summoned China’s top envoy in Manila on Tuesday to protest what it said was the firing of a water cannon by a Chinese government vessel to drive away Filipino fishermen from a hotly disputed shoal in the South China Sea.
Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said the protest was handed to Beijing’s charge d'affairs over the Jan. 27 incident at Scarborough Shoal, a rich fishing ground claimed by China and the Philippines. China ignored the protest and called its sovereignty there ‘‘indisputable.’’
China has controlled the shoal since Philippine vessels backed off from a tense standoff there in 2012. Chinese coast guard and surveillance ships have guarded the territory and chased away Filipino fishermen if they ventured close. The Philippines asked an international tribunal last year to declare China’s seizure of the shoal and seven other South China Sea reefs illegal.
Filipino fish trader Macario Forones said Chinese coast guard personnel used crude oil-laden waste water while blowing their ship’s horn and yelling ‘‘Go away, go away’’ at his fishermen. One or two other Philippine fishing boats were hit by the waste water, he said.
‘‘The water smelled of oil and smeared the side of my fishing boat,’’ Forones told The Associated Press by telephone from western Zambales province. ‘‘But my fishermen did not really leave the area. We've spent so much money to travel there and they basically ignored the Chinese.’’
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe