MANILA — The Philippines rejected a newly released China Coast Guard (CCG) video featuring its “routine law-enforcement patrols” near Bajo de Masinloc, calling it propaganda that conceals Beijing’s refusal to respond to lawful radio challenges in the area.

West Philippine Sea spokesperson Jay Tarriela said the video was “carefully edited to project an image of complete control and legitimacy,” but asserted that CCG vessels have repeatedly ignored radio calls issued by the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in recent days.

He said Chinese vessels “have maintained radio silence, offering no acknowledgment, no justification, and no rebuttal to the Philippine authorities’ lawful assertions of jurisdiction,” despite being hailed on VHF Channel 16.

Tarriela noted that the latest CCG video again included a scripted radio line declaring China’s “indisputable sovereignty” over Scarborough Shoal and its adjacent waters. He said this illustrates why Beijing “cannot and will not engage in a substantive radio exchange” with the Philippines.

According to Tarriela, the Philippines’ radio challenges are anchored in international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 2016 Arbitral Award, which “categorically invalidated China’s sweeping ‘nine-dash lies.’” China, he added, “has no credible legal response,” as its claim is based on “a relic of 1940s cartographic ambition” that has already been rejected by the tribunal.

“Unable to defend its position under modern international law, Beijing resorts to the only tools left in its playbook: physical intimidation, selective video propaganda, and the repeated assertion of ‘indisputable sovereignty’ as though sheer repetition could somehow transform fiction into fact,” he said.

Tarriela said the videos “are not evidence of lawful presence; they are admissions of legal weakness.” He stressed that China’s refusal to answer radio challenges and its continued reliance on a debunked claim highlight that its actions in Bajo de Masinloc “are neither routine nor legitimate — they are deliberate, sustained violations of Philippine sovereignty and international law.”