What the Scarborough standoff costs the fishers of Masinloc

On Tuesday, October 27, about 124 nautical miles off Masinloc, Zambales, between 40 and 50 Filipino fishing boats lined up beside a government ship to take on diesel. The ship was the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessel MV Mamalakaya, escorted by the Philippine Coast Guard's BRP Malapascua, while a coast guard aircraft overhead logged China Coast Guard and Chinese navy ships in the approaches to Scarborough Shoal, plus a Chinese research vessel. This time they did not interfere. PCG spokesperson Rear Adm. Jay Tarriela said the mission ended "without any untoward incident."

That a fuel handout at sea now counts as news tells you how fishing works for the roughly 28,000 fisherfolk of Zambales. The richest ground sits 124 nautical miles out, patrolled by steel ships, and the diesel to reach anything has climbed over the year.

One shoal, four names, three claimants

The feature at the center of it has four names. Zambales calls it Bajo de Masinloc, much of the Philippines calls it Panatag Shoal, the English-language press calls it Scarborough Shoal, and Beijing calls it Huangyan Dao. It is claimed by the Philippines, China and Taiwan, and China has kept coast guard ships there almost continuously since a 2012 standoff.

In 2016 an arbitral tribunal ruled that China had unlawfully blocked Filipino fishing at the shoal, and Beijing does not recognize that ruling. Philippine outlets report that in June 2024, China barred fishing within a 40-nautical-mile perimeter of the shoal.

Tensions peaked in July. On July 23, the PCG said a China Coast Guard vessel fired a water cannon at a Philippine fisheries vessel carrying fuel subsidies and food packs for fishers near the shoal. China's coast guard said it drove off Philippine government vessels on July 23 and again on July 24, and its spokesperson Jiang Lue said Manila had sent government ships and "instigated" fishing boats to "illegally congregate" in what Beijing calls its territorial waters. He said the response included verbal warnings, "blockade and control" and water cannon spraying.

What the fishers describe

Leonardo Cuaresma, president of the New Masinloc Fishermen's Association, told BusinessMirror in March that locals could only fish about 30 nautical miles from the shoal because of Chinese restrictions. They now work payaos, anchored rafts that draw fish, with hook and line, where spearfishing at the shoal used to fill their boats.

In July, Paulo Quitaneg, president of the Zambales Provincial Fishermen's Association, told DZRH that members had not reached the shoal since 2024, and that crews in small wooden bancas are afraid to enter waters patrolled by large steel ships. Many have sold their mother boats because the shorter trips no longer justify them, he said, and a good outing now brings in up to 2,000 kilos, enough to feed families but not enough. He also said Chinese vessels had cut the ropes anchoring payaos in nearby waters.

Efren Forones, a former boat captain who once earned P5,000 per trip, put it plainly to BusinessMirror: "You cannot compare those days with today."

The market side is harder to read. In March, Masinloc fish vendor Lita Ebueng posted galunggong at P120 to P180 a kilo and yellowfin tuna at P280, and said prices had stayed low even as fuel climbed. In that snapshot, a smaller catch from the shoal did not mean pricier fish at home, and there is no later price data to say whether that held.

How lost access reaches the kitchen

Reduced access hits household income through several routes, and they stack. With the richest grounds off limits, boats fish closer to shore around payaos, with lighter gear and smaller expected catches. Selling mother boats shrinks the fleet's reach even if access returned tomorrow. And crews weigh water cannons and blockades against an uncertain payoff, so some simply stay home.

Then there is fuel. Cuaresma said an ordinary fisher burns about five liters for an eight-hour night in municipal waters, and about twice that for daytime fishing. Diesel in Masinloc ranged from P107 to P118 a liter in late March, and nationally diesel showed a net increase of P64.83 a liter for the year as of October 12, according to industry figures reported by GMA News. There were rollbacks in late August and early September, then another increase on October 20. In March, ABS-CBN reported that diesel costs had cut fisherfolk earnings by nearly half, a blow that also lands on fishers who never sail near Scarborough.

Weather took its own cut. Typhoon Henry led to a suspension of vessel trips in southwestern Zambales on July 1, and in early August, PAGASA bulletins for Tropical Storm Maymay put northern Zambales, including Masinloc, under strong-wind warnings with rough seas. The southwest monsoon, which usually runs from June to September, makes the western seaboard harder to work every year.

Here is the honest limit. There is no public dataset that separates the trips Masinloc lost to the shoal from those lost to storms, the monsoon or fuel prices, so treat any figure that claims to with caution.

What Manila and the province are doing

The Zambales provincial government is betting on the waters it controls. In January it delivered two 45-foot fiberglass boats to the provincial fishermen's federation, a 92-foot steel harvester is due to support a payao program inside municipal waters, and members are training in seamanship at the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy.

At a July 10 ceremony ahead of the arbitral ruling's tenth anniversary, Gov. Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. declared "Scarborough is ours." Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said, "This is why we have to make a stand right now," and spoke of readying a "security arrangement." In October, Zambales Rep. Doris Maniquiz said House leaders had offered 60 payaos to the province's fishing communities. Nationally, the Department of Agriculture announced a one-time P3,000 fuel subsidy for qualified municipal fishers in March, which the fisherfolk group Pamalakaya called not enough.

Some of the anger points at Manila. In October, about 50 fisherfolk leaders sought Maniquiz's help to present a manifesto after impeachment-trial testimony showed that Cale88 Foods Corp., a company linked to Vice President Sara Duterte's husband, received about P319 million in remittances from China and Hong Kong. The Anti-Money Laundering Council's chief testified there was no showing that the Chinese state funneled the money, and the Chinese Embassy called reports of Beijing funding a political bloc "fabricated."

What stays unanswered

The escorted fuel runs are the most visible support and the most fragile. The July mission drew water cannons, and the October one did not.

Cuaresma has called the 2016 ruling "just a symbolic victory for us fishermen." Five months into this window, the open questions are the practical ones: how much of the catch decline since 2024 comes from the shoal, and how much from fuel and weather; why Masinloc prices stayed low while the catch shrank, and what is filling the gap; whether payaos close to shore can replace grounds 124 nautical miles out; what Teodoro's "security arrangement" would mean on the water; and whether October's quiet holds.