PH to build marine base on isle near Taiwan vs poaching

Satellite image of Y’Ami Island, Batanes Islands, Philippines (northernmost island of the Philippines) (Photo By NASA – NASA World Wind screenshot (Geocover 2000), Public Domain)

To combat poaching from the fishing grounds of the Philippines, the military revealed its plan to build a marine base on April in the northernmost island near Taiwan, named  Y’Ami or Mavulis.

“We need to have a presence there,” Northern Luzon Command of the Philippines spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Isagani Nato said in a Reuters report on March 20.

“It’s still uninhabited, that is why we are going to put up a facility to guard our maritime domain, and against poaching during the fishing period,” he added.

According to the same report, these fishing waters in the South China Sea are points where the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of both countries overlap.

Nato said that Y’ami island that is 80 kilometers away from Taiwan will be built and stationed with a small marine unit to increase military presence.

Without specifying the size of the planned military unit, Nato added that the structures would also serve as shelter to local fishermen.

The report further read that this military base will help in monitoring ships passing through the Balintang Channel, an international trade route separating Batanes and Babuyan Islands.

A shooting incident in the said channel almost cut the ties between the two countries in 2013.

“On May 9, 2013, a shooting incident took place involving patrolling personnel of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) on board BFAR MCS-3001 and a Taiwanese fishing vessel at Balintang Channel near the Batanes group of islands.

The incident resulted in the death of a Taiwanese fisherman,” a report by the Department of Justice (DOJ) read, as published in the Official Gazette.

In a Philippine Daily Inquirer report in August 2016, the Taiwanese court ordered the involved PCG officers to pay the killed Taiwanese fisherman P4.55 million for civil damages. However, the counsel of the accused officers defended that they do not need to pay because they were only performing the duties they were tasked with.