Chinese ships collide off Scarborough Shoal; PH Coast Guard offers aid

A China Coast Guard vessel chasing a Philippine Coast Guard ship collided with a Chinese Navy warship off Scarborough (Panatag) Shoal on Monday morning, Aug. 11, 2025. SCREENGRAB FROM THE PHILIPPINE COAST GUARD’S VIDEO.

MANILA, Philippines — A China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel chasing a Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) ship collided with a Chinese Navy warship off Scarborough (Panatag) Shoal on Monday morning, with Filipino authorities immediately offering assistance to Chinese personnel who may have been injured in the incident.

The CCG also attempted to use a water cannon on the BRP Suluan, but “the seamanship skills of PCG crew members allowed the vessel to successfully evade being hit,” PCG’s spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, Commodore Jay Tarriela, said in a statement.

READ: PH Coast Guard ship evades China counterpart’s water cannon

BRP Suluan, along with BRP Teresa Magbanua, escorted the M/V Pamamalakaya, which was in the area to assist about 35 Filipino fishing vessels.<

Tarriela said the fisherfolk also encountered “hazardous maneuvers and blocking actions from other vessels in the vicinity.”<

Maritime security analyst Ray Powell said that aside from the Chinese warship, at least seven CCG vessels and 14 maritime militia ships were “swarming” the area.

READ: PH’s Scarborough mission sees heavy presence of Chinese ships

Tarriela said the collision between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy warship No. 164 and the CCG 3104 occurred about 10.5 nautical miles east of Panatag Shoal. The incident took place within what Powell described as the 25–30 NM “exclusion zone” that Beijing has enforced since it effectively took control of the shoal in 2012.

BRP Suluan was being pursued by CCG 3104 when the collision occurred around 8 a.m.

“The CCG 3104, which was chasing the BRP Suluan at high speed, performed a risky maneuver from the PCG vessel’s starboard quarter, leading to the impact with the PLA Navy warship,” Tariela said.

“This resulted in substantial damage to the CCG vessel’s forecastle, rendering it unseaworthy,” he added.

Powell: Chinese Navy warship moves ‘very escalatory’

Powell noted that “it’s striking that the PLA Navy ship would be so directly involved” in obstructing the operations of Filipino vessels.

“Very escalatory,” Powell, program head of Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation,said of the moves of the Chinese warship in a message to Inquirer on X (formerly Twitter).

Meanwhile, Tarriela said the crew of BRP Teresa Magbanua safely escorted the Filipino fishermen to a secure location.

CCG personnel may have fallen into the sea

Tarriela said some CCG personnel may have fallen into the sea.

“We still don’t know whether it’s factual that there was a man overboard or there was injured,” he said in an online press conference. “We were just anticipating. As I said, we anticipated that there were people who got injured and who went overboard.”

He added that PCG personnel issued a radio call offering assistance but received no response.

“Following the collision, the PCG immediately offered support, including assistance with man-overboard recovery and medical aid for any injured CCG crew members,” Tarriela said in a statement.

“The Philippine Coast Guard reaffirms its dedication to safeguarding all maritime operations in the area and wishes for the swift recovery and proper treatment of any affected CCG personnel,” he added.

Article 98 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) requires states to render assistance to vessels and persons in distress at sea.

PCG’s ‘empathy and compassion’ lauded

Security analyst Chester Cabalza on Monday expressed hope that the PCG’s “empathy and compassion” would encourage Beijing to pursue continued dialogue and finalize the South China Sea code of conduct.

“The symbolic help of the PCG to the CCG shows that Filipino coast guard sailors have no bad blood to any nationality whenever they perform seriously their mandate on search and rescue operations,” Cabalza, president and founder of the Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, told Inquirer on Monday.

“The empathy and compassion shown by Filipinos to the CCG must become a realization to the Chinese politburo to pursue continuous dialogue and completion of the code of conduct of the South China Sea,” he added.

The Philippines will chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) next year, and Cabalza earlier said negotiations for the code of conduct are unlikely to be concluded during Malaysia’s chairmanship, which ends in a few months.

Asean member states and China have been negotiating a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea since March 2018.

READ: West PH Sea operations ‘business as usual’ despite Marcos’ milder tone – AFP

CCG says their operations are ‘professional’

CCG spokesperson Gan Yu said their white ships “took all necessary measures” to drive Filipino vessels away from Panatag Shoal, according to Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times.

The report made no mention of the collision between two Chinese ships or the use of water cannons.

Exclusion zone enforcement

Beijing is enforcing what Powell called an “exclusion zone” in Panatag Shoal, defying the 2016 arbitral ruling that designated the area as a traditional fishing ground for the Philippines, China, and Vietnam.

The 2016 arbitral award followed the case filed by former President Benigno Aquino III against China before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2013, a year after the tense standoff at Panatag Shoal.

Since China’s effective takeover of the shoal in 2012, at least two CCG ships have been stationed near the lagoon at all times, local authorities say, preventing the PCG and Filipino fishers from approaching.

“It should be noted that regardless of who legally ‘owns’ Scarborough Shoal itself, China is guilty of violating Unclos by impeding … freedom of navigation on the high seas,” Powell said./gsg/abc/mcm/abc