MANILA - PHILIPPINE security forces have detained a Vietnamese fishing boat and its 13 crew for poaching in Philippine territorial waters, a military spokesman said on Monday.
A naval patrol boarded the vessel in the Sulu Sea on Friday after a 30-minute chase in which warning shots were fired by the authorities, said Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Amerigo Fabregar, spokesman for the Philippine military's Western Command.
'They were definitely encroaching in our territorial waters,' Mr Fabregar told AFP by telephone.
The fishing boat was being towed to the island resort of El Nido, where the crew would be charged with illegal fishing, he added.
The vessel was boarded off the tiny island of Linapacan, to the north of the major western island of Palawan. -- AFP
