In a report, Commander Efren Sabas, of the Coast Guard’s Southern Tagalog district, identified the five Chinese as See Rong Sing, Huang Sao Chang, Lee Ping E, Sin Yung Tsai, and Su Chun Fu, crewmen of the vessel San Yun of Santo Shipping Corp. of China.
Coast Guard men, according to the report, were patrolling the Batangas Sea in the early afternoon of Nov. 21 when they chanced upon the 100-gross tonnage Chinese fishing vessel docked a few hundred meters away from the shores of Barangay San Teodoro in Mabini town.
The Coast Guard, together with immigration officials, kept the information on the apprehension from the media while they ascertained the vessel’s crewmen with the Chinese embassy.
With the help of an interpreter, probers said the vessel’s skipper, See Rong Sing, said they departed from Santun, China last Nov. 13 to go fishing in the China Sea but they encountered engine trouble upon reaching the Philippine territorial waters.
See said they also got a radio message that a typhoon was fast approaching, prompting them to seek shelter off Mabini town.
But Coast Guard authorities doubted See’s claims after he gave conflicting statements to the investigating team.
For instance, Sabas said the Chinese claimed that they arrived in the vicinity of Mabini at about 11 p.m. of Nov. 19 contrary to reports reaching the Coast Guard-Batangas that they were already there early that day.
Sabas suspects that the five Chinese were not engaged in fishing, although he did not elaborate.
The Coast Guard noted that the vessel was carrying only a trawl net which is not suited to deep-sea fishing, contrary to the skipper’s claim that they were to go fishing in the China Sea.
Besides, the Coast Guard said the vessel’s ice compartment only had a few chunks of ice not enough for open-sea fishing.
Felix Embalsado, Customs chief operations officer at the Port of Batangas, told The STAR that the Chinese nationals initially refused to cooperate with local authorities, demanding first that a representative of the Chinese embassy be present.
With that, the Customs and immigration bureaus requested the Department of Foreign Affairs to make the necessary representations with the Chinese embassy regarding the apprehended vessel and its crewmembers.
The five Chinese remain on board the vessel now docked in the Batangas City port. Authorities said they refuse to disembark without any Chinese embassy officials present.
The Provincial Committee on Illegal Entrants, headed by Senior Superintendent Francisco Don Montenegro, Batangas police director, is holding a hearing on the case today.