PCG drives off Chinese ship found 48 nautical miles off Zambales

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Coast Guard deployed an aircraft and a patrol vessel on Tuesday, May 19, to challenge a China Coast Guard ship found "drifting" roughly 48 nautical miles west of Pandaquit, Zambales. 

In a statement today, the PCG said tracking by Canada's dark vessel detection program first flagged the unauthorized presence of CCG vessel 4305. 

This prompted PCG Commandant Adm. Ronnie Gil Gavan earlier this morning to send aerial and surface assets "to challenge and drive away the Chinese vessel from Philippine maritime jurisdiction."

PCG's patrol aircraft Piper Navajo 302 took off from La Union Airport early Tuesday and at 8:40 a.m. visually confirmed CCG 4305 lying-to at 50.1 nautical miles west of Pandaquit, according to the statement. 

The aircrew issued repeated radio challenges, which the Chinese vessel did not acknowledge. 

The plane "conducted multiple passes to document the unlawful incursion before returning to the airport," the PCG said.

At sea, the Parola-class patrol vessel BRP Cape San Agustin sailed to the location and issued radio challenges throughout the day, according to the PCG. 

CCG vessel 4305 briefly responded to the first challenge in the morning, then went silent. The PCG said the Chinese vessel "provided no lawful basis for its presence within the Philippines' EEZ."

At a reported 48 nautical miles off Pandaquit, CCG vessel 4305 was operating well within the Philippines' 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, where Manila holds sovereign rights over fisheries, energy and other resources under UNCLOS.  

"The PCG remains resolute in defending the Philippines' sovereign rights and jurisdiction through sustained MDA flights, vessel deployments, and lawful enforcement operations across the West Philippine Sea," Gavan said in the statement. 

The PCG said it would not allow China's coast guard to normalize its patrols off Zambales and condemned these as violations of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and the final and binding 2016 Arbitral Award. 

Continued swarming. The incident comes three days after Chinese research ship Xiang Yang Hong 33 was flagged by the PCG for operating inside the waters of Pag-asa Island on May 16.

The PCG also documented 20 Chinese maritime militia vessels scattered around Sandy Cay 3 and 4 that day.

Chinese deployments across the West Philippine Sea have held at near-record levels through 2026. The Armed Forces of the Philippines tracked 15 People's Liberation Army Navy warships and 20 CCG vessels at four features from May 4 to 11, most of them near Scarborough Shoal. 

The closest approach by a CCG vessel to the Philippine coast was in April 2025, when the PCG said it saw a Chinese vessel 23 nautical miles off Dasol, Pangasinan.