PCG takes legal steps to get Chinese-manned vessel out of Zambales

GROUNDED The Sierra Leone-registered and Chinese-manned Hyperline 988, which has been grounded in Zambales waters since May, is battered by huge waves at the height of Supertyphoon Carina (international name: Gaemi). The Philippine Coast Guard wants the vessel towed soon to avoid causing environmental damage amid the typhoon season. —PCG Zambales

SAN ANTONIO, ZAMBALES, Philippines — The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has gone before a local court to seek authorization for the salvage operation of the foreign vessel that ran aground in the waters of San Felipe, Zambales. The vessel is manned by seven Chinese nationals who were detained in May for violating several laws.

A three-page urgent motion filed by the PCG substation in San Felipe before the locality’s municipal trial court (MTC) on Aug. 6 said that the advent of typhoon season has made the continued presence of Hyperline 988 in Barangay Maloma an “undeniable risk to the life, property, and safety of the residents in the coastal community, as well as to the marine environment.”

READ: Zambales PCG files immigration violation raps vs 7 Chinese

“The visible damage on the vessel is now clearly apparent, thereby furthering the risk of environmental disaster and hazard to life, property, and safety of the general public,” said the PCG’s urgent motion, a copy of which was obtained by the Inquirer on Saturday.

On July 24, the PCG also lodged a separate complaint before the San Felipe MTC for serious disobedience to an agent of a person in authority against the Hyperline representative and the ship’s Chinese crew who were also barred by the PCG from leaving town.

Immigration case

The San Felipe MTC has set on Aug. 16 the hearing of both the July complaint and the motion for the vessel’s removal from the town’s waters.

The Chinese crew members are also facing a separate case for violation of immigration laws lodged by the PCG before the Zambales Provincial Prosecutor’s Office on May 24.

The seven crew, who had been staying in a local resort and would alternately guard the vessel, were accused of violating the Philippine Immigration Law for, among others, their unauthorized entry and that of their Sierra Leone-registered into the waters of San Felipe on May 14; for concealing their identity as foreign nationals, and for hoisting only the Philippine flag even if it is a foreign-registered ship; and for their “willful disregard of issued radio challenges with no justifiable reason.”

The prosecutor’s office has yet to set the hearing for the complaint.

The vessel, which ran aground in an unfinished private wharf in the town on May 29, was partially submerged by strong waves caused by the southwest monsoon and Supertyphoon Carina (international name: Gaemi) on July 24.

Safe anchorage

Six persons composed of representatives of the ship, the PCG and the hired salvor company—who were on board guarding the ship during the storm and were dubbed as “storm riders,” had to be rescued by the PCG.

Cmdr. Euphraim Jayson Diciano, chief of the PCG station in Zambales, said in a phone interview on Saturday that those incidents would not have happened if the First Luzon Development Corp., the owner of the unfinished wharf where the vessel ran aground, had allowed the immediate transfer the ship to a safe anchorage in Navotas City.

The vessel was supposed to have been towed to Navotas last June but the owner of the unfinished wharf barred the salvor’s workers from entering the area where the ship had been stuck, insisting that the issues involving the payment for the damage incurred on the pier and the insurance policies had to be resolved first.

The vessel was held in the town’s waters on May 16 after the PCG found 21 deficiencies in the vessel’s documentation. There were also no entry permits or even a crew list presented during the PCG’s inspection.

The PCG later learned from the ship’s captain about the Chinese crew’s decision to drop anchor in San Felipe waters to avoid the high anchorage fees in Manila, even if the town has no port facility.

On May 29, the vessel ran aground at the unfinished wharf in Barangay Maloma while it was on its way to Barangay Bolitoc in Sta. Cruz town, also in Zambales, to change anchorage.