Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay on October 18, 2023. | PHOTO: INQUIRER.net / Arnel Tacson

MANILA, Philippines — Days after the incident, China and the Philippines continued to trade accusations of lying over what transpired at Escoda (Sabina) Shoal last week.

Three Filipino fishers were injured when China Coast Guard (CCG) forces fired water cannons to drive them away from Escoda Shoal on Dec. 12, according to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), which provided footage of the incident shot by the local fisherfolk themselves.

In response, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun offered a different version of events. Guo, who did not mention the water cannon incident, framed CCG operations against Filipino fishers as “professional” while accusing them of wielding knives.

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Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. on Tuesday said the accusations against the fisherfolk were “blatant lies.”

READ: Teodoro: China’s claim that fishers wield knives vs CCG a ‘blatant lie’

On Wednesday, Chinese defense ministry spokesperson Jiang Bin echoed the allegation that the Filipino fishermen had brandished knives against the CCG.

Jiang also accused “certain individuals” in the Philippines of telling “barefaced lies,” warning them to stop “staging incidents, playing the victim, and hyping propaganda.”

“This is … a case of the thief crying ‘stop thief,’” Jiang was quoted by Chinese state media Xinhua as saying.

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According to US-based news platform The China Project, the Chinese idiom “a thief crying ‘stop thief’” is similar in meaning to the English expression “it takes one to know one.”

DND spokesperson Arsenio Andolong on Thursday responded to the latest accusation from his Chinese counterpart.

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“The Philippines is not hyping the issue; the facts speak for themselves,” Andolong said in a statement.

“The facts are not distorted,” he added, noting that the Escoda incident was “documented, timestamped, and corroborated by video recordings, vessel logs, and on-site reporting” by the PCG.

“No amount of rhetorical reframing changes the reality that ordinary fishermen were harmed while fishing lawfully within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ),” he continued.

Escoda Shoal is a low-tide elevation well within the country’s EEZ, approximately 75 to 95 nautical miles from Palawan.

China claims “indisputable sovereignty” over Escoda Shoal, but the atoll is more than 600 nautical miles — or up to 1,200 kilometers — from the country’s nearest landmass.

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A 2016 international tribunal ruling has since effectively dismissed Beijing’s sweeping sovereignty claims over almost the entire South China Sea, following an arbitration case filed by Manila. /jpv

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