Military flags underwater structures at Scarborough Shoal

Manila, Philippines – A routine aerial and maritime patrol of the West Philippine Sea on Monday, Oct.13, yielded sightings of underwater structures in one of the contested features there – Scarborough Shoal.

On Tuesday, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said an investigation is already underway to determine if the man-made structures are newly built or old.

The discovery came as China moved to militarize Scarborough Shoal, a traditional fishing ground that Beijing declared will be turned into its national nature reserve.

China earlier this month deployed bomber jets and warships to this flashpoint in the West Philippine Sea, and over the weekend, another maritime confrontation erupted as the Philippine Coast Guard and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources delivered food and fuel to Filipino fishermen in Scarborough and Escoda Shoal.

The AFP said attempts by Beijing to build structures in this maritime flashpoint date as far back as 1997.

“We have received reports of certain structures underwater which we are verifying,” Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, AFP spokesperson for West Philippine Sea, told a press briefing on Tuesday, Oct. 14.

“But we have to understand that in the past, in 1997, there was an attempt to erect a steel structure by the Chinese Communist Party which were blown up by our Philippine Navy forces,” he said.

Trinidad did not discount the possibility that the underwater structures found in Scarborough Shoal could also be old because the waters off the coastline of Zambales from Subic – given their proximity to the old US naval bases – were formerly used as a bombing range for American and Filipino forces.

A Hague ruling, handed down in 2016, declared China’s sweeping claims in the West Philippine Sea and reclamation as well as building artificial islands and military structures as illegal.