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The maritime cooperative activity between Philippine and Australia was "very successful" despite the shadowing incident against the Philippine and Australian vessels and the monitored presence of Chinese fighter jets encircling the Philippine Air Force aircraft in the West Philippine Sea, Armed Forces of the Philippine (AFP) chief said Monday.

"Our initial assessment of the maritime cooperative activity between the Philippines and Australia is that it was a very successful, successful because there were no untoward incidents, no untoward incident happened wala, no one was injured, but more importantly we were able to achieve the objectives that we set out to achieve through this joint activity," AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said as the three-day MCA between Australia and Philippines ends Monday.

Brawner said the Philippines and Australian ships were conducting the activity in the West Philippine Sea when they were shadowed by Chinese vessel on Saturday, while the incident where the Philippine Air Forces aircraft was circled by Chinese jets was monitored on the following day.

"The Super Tucano was doing its air patrol over the West Philippine Sea we noticed two aircraft jet fighters circling about them, they were circling above but the circling happened for about 15 minutes and our aircraft, the Philippine aircraft were able to finish their mission, they completed their maritime air patrol in the area of West Philippine Sea without any untoward incident," he said.

Col. Xerxes Trinidad, AFP public affairs office chief, said the Philippine Air Force aircraft were in the vicinity of Hubo Reef when the Chinese jets circled above them.

"It was confirmed as per reports received that two Chinese fighter jets were monitored orbiting the PH’ A-29B Super Tucano at the vicinity of Hubo Reef in West Philippine Sea. Our aircraft is participating in the PH-AUS Maritime Cooperative Activity and continued on its flight route without incident," he said.

Brawner noted that the encounter with Chinese military aircraft in the South China Sea is not an "unusual" incident as it was also experienced by other countries like the US and Japan.

"I don't think it is unusual, in fact it happened May of this year when US aircraft were also flying over the South China Sea and they also encountered Chinese PLA Air Force aircraft circling around them so this is not the first time this happened," he said.

"It also happened between Japanese aircraft and Chinese aircraft, US aircraft and Chinese aircraft and this time with our own aircraft. So this is not the first time that this happened, it seems to be the tactics of China over the South China Sea," he added.

Brawner assures that the Philippines will continue to conduct joint patrols with its allied forces although he did not give specific details on the future MCA.

"The joint maritime and air patrols with our ally and our partners will continue on, we just don't know now the frequency and also maybe the extent of our patrols but we are working on that, we are constantly talking to our allies and partners and they are also very much willing to conduct and to continue conducting this joint maritime and air patrols with us in the West Philippine Sea," he said.

He also noted that there are other countries who are expressing their interest to join the patrol with the Philippines

"Aside from the bilateral joint exercises and joint operations that we are doing there are also some countries who are expressing their desire to conduct this joint maritime and air patrols not just bilaterally but multilaterally and right now there is no specific plan yet for that but we are continuously talking with our allies and partners," he said.

"This is a possibility probably by next year because we need a lot of preparations. It's not as easy as just sailing together or patrolling together. We have to really make sure that everything is in order so that there is safety, safety is our primordial concern here," he added. Robina Asido/DMS