A China Coast Guard ship that had been marking territory in Manila Bay took off when Typhoon Emong (also called Typhoon Co-may) hit the Philippines a couple of days ago (Inquirer, July 24, 2025). The ship had been as close as 50 nautical miles away from the Philippine coastline.
Maritime expert Ray Powell of Stanford University told Inquirer that the purpose of the patrol was to “assert Beijing’s sovereignty claim in the entire South China Sea, including most of the West Philippine Sea, which the landmark 2016 arbitral award effectively invalidated in favor of Manila’s sovereign rights…. Powell said it is still unclear if CCG-3304 will return all the way to the ports in the Chinese mainland.”
He did expect, though, that the vessel would be back to continue with its “exclusion zone enforcement” once the storm had passed.
New Philippine naval bases
In response to China’s continuing belligerence, one thing that the Philippine government is doing is building naval bases. The idea is to strengthen defense cooperation between the Philippines and the United States “amid security challenges posed by China.”
Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said in November 2024 that the Misamis naval base could complement air operations at Lumbia Air Base during natural disasters. Under the treaty allies’ Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, the air base is among nine Philippine locations to which U.S. forces have access for missions such as disaster response.
According to the Philippine Navy, the new bases will enhance force projection and bolster area-denial capabilities by providing the ability to potentially restrict access to vital sea lanes.
“The Philippines’ decision to open new naval bases in Subic Bay and Mindanao significantly fortifies its defense posture while directly strengthening the Philippines-U.S. defense cooperation,” the Navy stated. The move “is noteworthy as it coincides with the growing tensions in the South China Sea and the Philippines’ pursuit of modernization.”
What is the nature of these growing tensions in the South China Sea?
See the documentary
Part of the story of China’s conduct in the South China Sea is told in a Philippine documentary, “Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea,” which in March was mysteriously dropped from Manila’s PureGold CinePanalo Film Festival, where it had been scheduled to premiere (Arab News, July 24, 2025).
Despite that setback, the documentary “about the daily struggles of Filipino fishermen and coast guards is now winning big abroad….”
Seeking to highlight the “human” side of tensions beyond geopolitical framing, it centers on the story of Filipino fishermen “who risk their lives every day” and the quiet efforts of Philippine coast guard personnel to keep them safe despite limited resources, [filmmaker Baby Ruth] Villarama told Arab News.
“They see it as their duty, their lifeblood, and their birthright. What struck us most was not anger or fear, but a deep sense of quiet dignity. These are men who wake before sunrise, not minding what dangers await them, yet they sail because they must feed their families and uphold traditions passed down for generations,” she said….
The documentary went on to have its world premiere at the Doc Edge Festival in New Zealand, where it won the Tides of Change prize earlier this month.
The report doesn’t tell us why the organizers of the PureGold CinePanalo Film Festival chickened out a few months ago—only that at the time, they mumbled something about “external factors.” But there’s a clue in the fact that before the documentary was shown in New Zealand, the Chinese Consulate-General in Auckland filed an external-factor-type protest with the Doc Edge Festival, urging it to drop the film.
The consulate complained that “Food Delivery” is “rife with disinformation and false propaganda, serving as a political tool for Philippines to pursue illegitimate claims in the South China Sea.”
One of the filmmakers, Chuck Gutierrez, says “we did not make this film to antagonize anyone” but to “show the day-to-day reality faced by Filipinos in the West Philippine Sea.”
It’s an odd thing to take the trouble to deny; what reasonable person would have assumed that the purpose of making the documentary was not to tell its story or spread the word but to antagonize somebody? Of course, that it would antagonize was unavoidable. The same kind of delusional Chinese Communist Party maniacs who make a point of endangering peaceful fishermen in the South China Sea also run consulates like the one in Auckland.
