The 22 Filipino fishermen of F/B GEMVIR1 are aboard a Navy ship after the June 9 sinking of their boat by a Chinese vessel. Jeff Canoy, ABS-CBN News

MANILA -- The findings of a government investigation into the sinking of a Filipino boat by a Chinese vessel in the West Philippine Sea "doesn't paint our fishermen in the brightest lights", Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin said Wednesday.

The Philippine Coast Guard reported that of the Filipino boat's 22 crew members, only their cook was awake before they were hit by the Chinese vessel last month near Reed Bank (Recto Bank), which is part of Manila's exclusive economic zone, said Locsin.

"I got the Coast Guard report immediately... Our investigation was finished. It was exhaustive. It's not, I got to tell you, it doesn't paint our fishermen in the brightest lights," he told ANC.

"They had no lookout, even the enemies of the President says you need an assigned lookout. They didn't... Everybody was asleep," he said.

The cook, he said, "had a small light."

"Whether or not that light should have been sufficient to warn the oncoming Chinese vessel, I don't know," he added.

He said that after the ramming, the Chinese boat "backed up and they went."

Locsin said the Philippines immediately filed a diplomatic protest with Beijing after the incident.

He also delivered remarks at the UN Headquarters in New York where he said abandoning anyone in need is a felony.

"Abandoning persons in danger is covered not just by UNCLOS but maritime law in general...There is a crime of abandoning a person in danger," he said.

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The Filipino fishermen earlier said that they were left adrift for hours before they were rescued by a Vietnamese vessel.

Locsin said he was not authorized to reveal more about the Coast Guard's findings into the incident.

He earlier objected to a joint investigation by Manila and Beijing into the incident.

"In a joint investigation, I do not believe that China would allow our Coast Guard to go to Chinese soil, no more than we would allow Chinese Coast Guard to step on Philippine soil to interview our fishermen will they allow us to interview the captain of the Chinese vessel," he said.

"When you come up with separate investigations, the 2 results are there, then you can compare notes and say why is it like this?" he added.

President Rodrigo Duterte has accepted Beijng's proposed joint investigation, with Philippines and China having one representative each, and a third member coming from a neutral country.

China rejected a third party investigator. It earlier said the trawler merely "bumped" into the Philippine boat and tried to rescue the fishermen but was "afraid of being besieged by other Filipino fishing boats".

Duterte has largely set aside the Philippines' row with Beijing over the key waterway to court trade and investments.

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