THE Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Monday flagged possible AIS spoofing by a Chinese research vessel detected loitering inside the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off Itbayat, Batanes, after it failed to respond to repeated radio challenges.
The PCG said its Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) flight visually confirmed the presence of JIA HAI KE 7 38 nautical miles northwest of Itbayat.
The vessel was challenged several times by the PCG over radio, with authorities asserting Philippine sovereign rights and asking the vessel to state its intentions and cease any unauthorized activity.
The vessel did not respond.
The PCG said the vessel was detected by its monitoring station in Itbayat rather than through its Automatic Identification System (AIS).
Verification through the Canada-provided Dark Vessel Detection (DVD) system also showed what the PCG described as an anomalous AIS track.
According to the PCG, the JIA HAI KE 7 reported departing Xiamen, Fujian, at 12:59 a.m. on Sept. 21 and was subsequently broadcasting a position off Bindari, Papua New Guinea, at 8:10 p.m. the same day.
By 6:55 a.m. Monday, its AIS was transmitting a position northwest of Itbayat.
The PCG assessed the movement as possible deliberate AIS spoofing intended to conceal the vessel's actual movements.
The vessel was also observed holding position in the same general area instead of maintaining a steady course and speed, prompting the PCG to monitor it closely.
The PCG said the vessel's loitering behavior is consistent with operations involving marine scientific or seabed research, although it has not publicly established what activity the vessel was conducting off Batanes.
The presence of a research vessel in the area is significant because the waters around Batanes and the Luzon Strait are strategically important to the Philippines and include routes used by undersea communications infrastructure.
The PCG has raised the possibility that the vessel could be conducting seabed surveys, including activity that could potentially provide information on subsea cables, but the agency has not publicly established that the JIA HAI KE 7 was conducting such an operation.
The PCG said it would continue monitoring the vessel through its coastal monitoring stations, the DVD system and succeeding MDA flights.
The PCG's Itbayat monitoring station, established to help track foreign vessels approaching the country's northern maritime areas, has become an important component of surveillance in the waters around Batanes.
