Marcos orders Coast Guard to inspect all Manila Bay dredgers

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered the Philippine Coast Guard to board and inspect all dredgers working on Manila Bay reclamation projects.

"The President orders the PCG to board all the dredgers operating in Manila Bay as part of the reclamation project and inspect their vessel registration and AIS transmission," Palace Press Officer Claire Castro told reporters in a message on Tuesday, January 6. 

The order comes days after a maritime security analyst published an article on how a single Chinese-origin dredger has broadcast at least 30 different identities while shuttling between Manila Bay and a dredging site in Zambales for over two years.

The dredger Kang Ling 539 has operated under six different flag states — including the Philippines, Sierra Leone, China, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Panama — while performing dredging operations, according to the report by Ray Powell, director of SeaLight, published Monday, January 5.

Powell's analysis found the vessel simultaneously broadcasts multiple identities through its Automatic Identification System, switching between Philippine and Sierra Leone flags depending on its location. 

Last weekend, the ship dropped its Philippine identity while conducting a four-hour dredging operation at the Santo Tomas River mouth in Zambales, then resumed broadcasting it upon re-entering Manila Bay.

Philippine law requires dredgers moving sand between Philippine points to be at least 60% Filipino-owned, Philippine-flagged and registered, and crewed by Filipinos. Foreign-owned or foreign-flagged dredgers cannot legally perform routine dredging operations unless reflagged and placed under qualified domestic ownership.

Marcos ordered a probe of all dredging operations nationwide in May 2025 amid mounting environmental concerns and reports that Philippine sand was being diverted to Chinese land reclamation projects.  — with reports by Jean Mangaluz