A fishing boat from Pingtung County’s Liouciou Township (琉球) has been detained by the Philippines on charges of poaching, the Liouciou Fishermen’s Association said yesterday.
The Sheng Fong No. 12 (昇豐12) set out on Wednesday morning for Davao in the southern Philippines, but was detained in waters off Batan Islands, association chief executive Tsai Pao-hsing (蔡寶興) said.
The boat had two Taiwanese aboard — captain Hung Tien-ting (洪添丁) and the chief engineer, surnamed Huang (黃) — and four foreign crew members.
The boat was passing through waters 6.5 nautical miles (12km) from the Philippines’ North Island, called Yami Island by Taiwan, early yesterday morning when inspectors on a Philippine ship approached and boarded the fishing boat to investigate possible poaching of fish, Tsai said, citing information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The ministry was able to make contact with Hung about 3pm yesterday, who told ministry officials that the boat was not operating commercially, but only exercising the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea of the Philippines.
The association has asked the ministry to request that the Philippine government release the boat and crew immediately if they are found not to be in violation of any laws, Tsai said.
Ministry spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said that the Philippine government had notified Taiwan of the incident through the proper channels, adding that the Coast Guard Administration had also been notified and was preparing to dispatch a ship to help with the situation.
The fishing boat and its crew are safe and unharmed, Kao said, adding that the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines was monitoring the situation.
Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources director Asis Perez said that the boat had been towed to Basco in the Batan Islands for further investigation, adding that while no untoward incident had occurred, the Philippines Coast Guard had not yet contacted him or filed a preliminary report on the boat’s detention.
Local fishing boats passing through Philippine or Philippine-claimed waters has been a sensitive issue between Taipei and Manila since a shooting incident on May 9, 2013, in which 65-year-old Taiwanese fisherman Hung Shih-cheng (洪石成) was killed by Philippine Coast Guard personnel.
His fishing boat was in disputed waters between Taiwan and the Philippines.
The incident led Taiwan to impose 11 sanctions temporarily on the Philippines. The sanctions were lifted after three months.
Additional reporting by Chen Yen-ting and Diane Baker
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