Terrible. Getting caught up in a geopolitical fight while you’re just trying to eke out a living. Hope their families find peace.

The area has witnessed increasingly frequent run-ins between Philippine vessels and tiny wooden fishing boats against much larger Chinese coast guard ships and what Manila says are shadowy Chinese “maritime militia” fishing vessels.

Wooden fishing boats vs. steel hull ships tells you everything about who’s the aggressor. Hope they find a resolution.

Wow, must be some rogue pirate vessel, because any formal government ship, especially one flying a bright red flag, would be too easy to identify. It’s a mystery. /s

Turns out, it was a Korean vessel. Thanks for the manufactured outrage, everyone!

The fact that they’re not willing to say anything more specific than “foreign vessel” is actually rather interesting. Usually, the Philippines would be clamouring to get another dig in at China, but either they actually don’t know in this case (lol) or Taiwan/Vietnam are getting into the picture at Scarborough Shoal (and expanding beyond the Spratlys)… if so, the Filipino boat might have just gotten caught in the crossfire.

It could also be retaliation for this, but then I’d imagine Filipino rhetoric should be far more aggressive than it is.