December 8, 2023
MANILA – The cargo ship that hit a stationary Filipino boat in the West Philippine Sea was identified to be from China, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said on Thursday.
“Under the flag of China,” the PCG told reporters in a Viber message when asked about MV Tai Hang 8’s flag of origin.
Marinetraffic.com, a website with access to data from land-based automatic identification systems, also indicated that the MV Tai Hang 8 is under the Chinese flag.
Captain Edyson Abanilla, a Coast Guard Station commander in Oriental Mindoro, told radio DWPM that the incident occurred between the waters of Occidental Mindoro and Palawan, which is a “nautical highway”, but it is already part of the West Philippine Sea.
Filipino fishing boat Ruel J was moored to a fishing aggregation device when it had an alleged allision with bulk carrier MV Tai Hang 8 on Tuesday afternoon.
A maritime incident is described as allision — as opposed to collision — when a vessel runs over a stationary boat.