Atin Ito slams China’s ‘propaganda-driven’ assistance to distressed Pinoy fishers in WPS

West Philippine Sea (WPS) rights and Filipino fishers' welfare civil society coalition Atin Ito on Saturday slammed China’s alleged propaganda when it claimed that a Chinese Navy ship supposedly helped a distressed fisherman in the disputed waters.

In a statement, Atin Ito said it “rejects China’s deceptive, self-serving, and propaganda-driven public relations campaign following its so-called assistance to a distressed Filipino fisher on Christmas Day.”

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has earlier disputed the Chinese Embassy’s account that Navy ship 174 “provided swift humanitarian assistance to a distressed Philippine fishing vessel in the South China Sea.”

According to the embassy, the Chinese warship “delivered essential food and water to the fisherman who had been stranded for three days due to engine failure.”

The embassy added that a follow-up support was supposedly coordinated with the PCG.

PCG spokesperson for WPS Commodore Jay Tarriela, however, said that the agency has not received prior information from the Chinese Navy regarding the location or condition of the fisherman.

"What China did was not humanitarianism, it is image management. It is propaganda-driven assistance meant to distract us from years of harassment, violence and illegal incursions,” said Atin Ito co-convenor Rafaela David. 

David, who is also president of Akbayan Party, said that China’s account does not even align with established facts. 

While China claimed the fisher had been missing for three days, the Philippine Coast Guard clarified that he had been safely anchored to a payao for less than 24 hours, waiting for retrieval by its mother boat.

To recall, Tarriela said that “claim that he (fisherman) had been adrift for three days is inaccurate,” adding that “the service boat departed on a fishing trip on December 24 around 3:00 p.m., and the fisherman was located by the PCG and the mother boat the following afternoon—less than 24 hours later.”

“This raises the most basic and unavoidable question…Why was China patrolling inside the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone in the first place? No act of assistance, however welcome, grants permission to trespass. No gesture of kindness erases repeated acts of harassment and violence in our waters,” said David.

“China should stop pretending that a bottle of water and a pack of snacks can wipe away years of harassment,” David said, recalling that days earlier, China Coast Guard vessels water-cannoned Filipino fishers in Escoda Shoal and carried out coercive maneuvers that damaged two fishing boats.

“Propaganda-driven assistance does not negate violation of international law, launder aggression, or absolve China of continuing encroachment... The Filipino people will not be gaslit into gratitude for an obvious PR spectacle from a foreign aggressor,”she said. 

GMA News Online reached out to the Chinese Embassy for comment, but no response has been received yet as of this posting. —VAL, GMA Integrated News