By Roy Mabasa

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) report on the Recto Bank incident has put the blame on the Filipino fishermen for not establishing a lookout when their boat – F/B Gem-Vir I – was hit by a Chinese vessel on June 9 off the West Philippine Sea, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. revealed on Wednesday.

“It does not paint our fishermen in the brightest lights. They’re wrong,” Locsin said in an interview with the ANC.

Citing the PCG report, Locsin said almost everyone on the Filipino boat was sleeping and only the cook was on deck.

“I don’t want to say it because I’m not authorized by the ones who made it, the Coast Guard, to reveal it. But I can tell you this much. There was no lookout that the cook was out there on deck. Everybody was asleep,” he said.

In the Coast Guard report, Locsin said the cook looked up and saw a boat coming. The latter reportedly continued what he was doing until he saw the boat getting closer.

“And then he looked up again and said, ‘my gosh it’s gotta hit’ and he shouted. And he got (?) a small light. Whether or not that light should have been sufficient to warn the oncoming Chinese vessel, I don’t know. Let the guys who are the experts on maritime (make a conclusion),” Locsin said as he clarified these narrations were based on interviews conducted by the PCG with the fishermen themselves immediately after they were turned over by the Vietnamese fishermen.

Locsin explained that it was for this reason he used the term “allision” in describing the incident after reading the Coast Guard report.

“That’s why I spoke in the United Nations. And when I spoke I did not emphasize the bumping, the allision… nobody knows that term. Only I do,” he said.

Locsin reasoned out that if the Chinese vessel deliberately hit the Filipino fishing boat it would have been impacted in the midships.

He believes that the Chinese vessel was backing up.

“No question they backed up and they left. But I didn’t want to say more than that,” the country’s top diplomat said.