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PH Navy personnel trained to repel ship intruders - official

Philippine News Agency

By Priam Nepomuceno
August 27, 2025, 11:31 am

MANILA -- Personnel manning Philippine Navy (PN) ships are trained to repulse intruders attempting to board or take over their vessels, according to a ranking naval official.

"All ships in the navies in the world operate with certain bills or scenarios, that includes a bill or a scenario on how to repel boarders. Our ships have that bill and we exercise that regularly," PN spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea (WPS) Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad said in an interview late Tuesday.

Trinidad gave this assurance when asked if the PN is capable of defending BRP Sierra Madre (LS-57), the grounded World War II-era vessel that serves as the Philippine post in Ayungin Shoal, in case of an attack by intruders.

On Monday, a tugboat of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was spotted in Ayungin Shoal, along with 13 Chinese maritime militia vessels and two China Coast Guard ships.

Trinidad dismissed the possibility that the tugboat was in Ayungin Shoal to tow away BRP Sierra Madre, saying it would take more than one tugboat to remove the grounded Philippine ship from the area.

Asked on how many tugboats PLAN would need to tow the BRP Sierra Madre from its present location, Trinidad declined to comment, saying the PN does not deal with "speculative scenarios."

"Rest assured that there are already contingency plans in place for any eventuality," he said, stressing that the presence of the PLAN tugboat in Ayungin Shoal is "not a cause for alarm."

He also said the BRP Sierra Madre's hull is now "strongly anchored on corals," having been grounded in Ayungin Shoal since 1999.

Also called the Second Thomas Shoal, Ayungin Shoal is a submerged reef located 105 nautical miles west of Palawan and is within the Philippines' 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

The Philippines has consistently asserted its sovereign rights over Ayungin Shoal and the broader WPS, anchored on the 2016 Arbitral Award that invalidated China's sweeping nine-dash line claim over the South China Sea. (PNA)