THE Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it has successfully installed three state-of-the-art buoys at Philippine Rise, formerly Benham Rise, a 13 million-hectare resource-rich undersea region east of Luzon.
“These are marker buoys which clearly indicate that area is part of our territory,” PCG Commandant Adm. George Ursabia said in a text message.
The lighted buoys were transported by the MV Morning Light from the Uni-Orient Pearl Ventures Inc. Shipyard in Mandaue City in Cebu to the Philippine Rise on May 12.
The buoys were then installed by the PCG, in collaboration with M-NAV Solutions Inc., from May 14 to 16.
The PCG said seven more similar buoys are due to be installed in the area this year.
The Philippine government lodged a full territorial claim over the then Benham Rise with the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in 2009. The claim was approved by the commission three years later.
In May 2017, President Duterte renamed the Benham Rise to Philippine Rise. Two months before that, Chinese survey ships were sighted by the military in the area, prompting the defense department to order the Navy to drive those ships away.
“They are just a mere hazard to navigation equipment. But the good thing is they symbolize the authority of the coast state, the Philippines, over that water,” PCG spokesman Commodore Armand Balilo said in a phone interview.
In a statement, the PCG quoted Ursabia as saying the presence of the buoys “communicates that said vicinity waters is considered a special protected zone.
“Hence, mining and oil exploration are strictly prohibited to preserve its rich natural resources,” the statement added.
The buoys are equipped with modern marine aids to navigation lanterns, specialized mooring systems, and a remote monitoring system that uses satellite technology to transmit data to the PCG headquarters in Manila.
In May 2018, the AFP’s Northern Luzon Command announced it cast the first buoy in the area to mark the first year anniversary of its renaming to Philippine Rise. A flag marker was also laid at the shallowest part, which is about 50 meters deep.
