In this compelling series, Reporter’s Notebook embarks on a journey aboard a 76-foot boat to document the lives of Filipino fishermen in Panatag Shoal, also known as Scarborough Shoal. It is a traditional fishing ground within the 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines. A camera stowed on one of the fishing boats films the Chinese Coast Guard boarding the Filipino vessel and opening the latch where their catch is stored. The fishermen reveal that the Chinese Coast Guard had made a habit of taking the best among their catch. In Panatag, merely 124 nautical miles off the coast of the

Philippines’ Zambales Province, a foreign power is the law. Scarborough was the site of a 2012 standoff between the Philippines and China, when Manila sent one of its naval ships to apprehend Chinese vessels carrying endangered clams and other marine species poached from the shoal. China gained control of the shoal after Manila withdrew its vessel and began blocking Filipino fishermen from the shoal. The Chinese blockade prompted the Philippines to file a case against China for violating the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which both countries ratified. The Tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark decision in 2016.

Two years later, the new administration under President Duterte maintains that PH-China relations are stronger than ever. On the ground, however, stories of exploitation remain. Apart from the foreign coast guard taking Filipinos’ catch, fishermen decry the destruction of the shoal’s coral bed. Reporter’s Notebook documents up close, for the first time, the rubble of dead coral underwater. Once little-known and unreported, these fish-taking and poaching incidents at sea are finally brought to light.

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