Death of a fishing village in Philippines
Fishermen in Masinloc, 250km north of Manila, have become the latest victims of the territory battle in the South China Sea
Just offshore, tied up at a cement pier no bigger than a basketball court, a 10-metre wooden fishing boat bobs in a gentle swell, never to put to sea again.
A geopolitical storm over China’s territorial claims to the South China Sea is preventing it from sailing from this sleepy town, 250km north of Manila, to what fishermen here describe as the closest thing to an “Eden” of the sea.
The reef that rings that postcard-perfect lagoon may protect the turquoise waters from the Pacific’s many typhoons, but Scarborough Shoal is now off limits to the proud fishermen from this town with a 400-year maritime history.
The tethered boat is the last of the ocean-going vessels to be sold, and when it’s gone, Masinloc will no longer see the blue marlin, yellowfin tuna, red grouper and lobsters that lit up the sunburnt faces of the intrepid few who ventured a day’s sailing from home.
Those beaming smiles are no more; brows furrow at the mention of what once was an idyllic lifestyle.
When China seized control of Scarborough in 2012, after a stand-off with the Philippines, Masinloc had to face up to a potentially bloody reality.
The grim prospect surfaced in April three years ago after a Philippine Navy frigate seized eight Chinese fishing boats suspected of poaching coral and giant clams around Scarborough.
But before it could tow the boats to port, two Chinese maritime surveillance ships arrived. For two months, the Philippines and China were on the brink of war over outcrops of rock and a 150sqkm body of water.
The US eventually mediated a deal.
Both sides were told to withdraw from Scarborough. The Philippines pulled out its ships but China stayed and later roped off the mouth of the lagoon.
Scarborough used to be neutral ground despite competing claims. Boatmen from the Philippines, China, Vietnam and Taiwan would gather during the dry months from January to July to plunder the sea’s bounty.
They bartered petrol, food, water and cigarettes and shared laughs over stories only men of the sea would enjoy.
“We didn’t have to speak Chinese to know what they wanted or to tell them what we needed,” says Jeffrey Elad, 40, a village elder who until April led fishing expeditions to Scarborough.
Named after an East India Company tea clipper that ran aground there in 1784, Scarborough lies 125 nautical miles east of Masinloc, most of whose 50,000 residents have ancestors who worked the sea for a living. Now, only about 2,000 head out every morning – but never beyond the safety of their own bay.
Since 2012, the Chinese have kept away fishermen from Masinloc and a few other towns in La Union and Pangasinan provinces farther north.
The boatmen have had to look inland for jobs.
Many have traded their nets and paddles for motorised rickshaws, passenger jeeps, livestock and farms. A 600MW coal-fired power plant, commissioned in 1998, has supplanted fishing as Masinloc’s lifeline.
Thousands work at the plant’s 137-hectare compound. They, in turn, create an ecosystem of odd jobs and mom-and-pop outlets that now make up Masinloc’s modest economy.
Some still keep close to the sea, running fish stalls, diving for shellfish and ornamental fish or ferrying occasional tourists around the bay.
Pedro Manglicmot, 40, a fisherman who now spends most of his time serving as a councillor, says Scarborough used to promise easy money for those with the means to get there.
On a good week, two days of fishing around the shoal could yield a harvest worth up to 300,000 pesos (Bt230,000) – 10 times the cost of the trip.
That was why fishermen took the risk to break through the Chinese blockade. But Manglicmot says he has given up on Scarborough.
The risk of losing his investment by betting that he can slip under China’s nose is just too high.
He bristles at reports that the Chinese have been busy harvesting giant clams and corals from Scarborough, protected by their coast guard.
“Pretty soon, they are going to clear Scarborough of what rightfully belongs to us. They are stealing from us,” says Manglicmot.
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei are staking ownership to parts of the South China Sea, a vital sea lane for trade worth about US$5 trillion (Bt176 trillion) a year.
But China is claiming “indisputable sovereignty” over 80 per cent of it – waters enclosed by what it calls its “nine-dash line”, a relic of the country’s early 20th-century nationalist era. Scarborough is inside that line.
Once a regular fisherman, Viany Mula, 43, now rents a motorcycle to make deliveries around Masinloc.
He would gladly trade his rickshaw for a chance to set out to sea again, but most of the time his boat just sits idle, awaiting a buyer.
For Elad, the village chief, his voyage to Scarborough in April was definitely his last. “It’s over,” he says.
