South China Sea: Philippine fishermen protest against new rule for coastguard arrest

Opposition and fishermen groups in the Philippines destroyed a cardboard effigy of Chinese President Xi Jinping outside Beijing’s consulate in Manila on Friday in a protest on the eve of a new regulation allowing the Chinese coastguard to detain foreigners over trespassing in the South China Sea.

Mong Palatino, secretary general of opposition party-list group Bayan Muna, said protesters were condemning what they saw as China’s baseless action in the West Philippine Sea, Manila’s name for waters within the South China Sea that lie within its exclusive economic zone.

“Fishermen and the Filipino people will defy the order. It is China which should be held accountable as trespassers,” Palatino said.

Outside the Chinese consulate office in Makati, former Bayan representative Teddy Casiño said demonstrators were urging China to reconsider its coastguard policy.

“We are here to condemn China’s latest new level of grabbing our territory,” Casiño told reporters minutes after police officers blocked their further advance on the consulate building.

Under the regulation set to take effect on Saturday, the China Coast Guard is authorised to detain foreign nationals for up to 60 days if they are caught trespassing in what is considered Beijing’s territorial waters.

Leonardo Cuaresma, leader of the New Masinloc Fishermen’s Association in the town of Masinloc in Zambales, a province near Scarborough Shoal, told This Week in Asia in a phone interview that his community would continue to operate in their traditional fishing ground.

He reiterated a warning to abduct 10 Chinese nationals for every local hurt or detained by China. “There are many Chinese here in the country if that’s what they want,” he warned.

“We will continue to fish. We don’t