The F/B Gem-Ver had sailed from San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, on 29 May 2019 with a crew of twenty-two under Captain Junel Insigne. Their destination was Reed Bank, a submerged seamount within what a 2016 international arbitration ruling had affirmed as the Philippines' exclusive economic zone -- though China claims the entire South China Sea as its own. The Gem-Ver was a typical Philippine fishing banca: wooden-hulled, 19 meters long with a beam of just 1.8 meters, powered by a single-screw diesel engine. It weighed 14 gross tonnes. The Yuemaobinyu 42212, registered to Guangdong Province, was built of steel, 44 meters long with an 8-meter beam -- a vessel of an entirely different order. What the Chinese crew's intentions were that night remains disputed. What is not disputed is what happened next: after the collision, the Yuemaobinyu 42212 departed the scene without checking whether anyone aboard the sinking vessel was alive.

The crew of the Gem-Ver found themselves in the water in the middle of the night, over a hundred nautical miles from the nearest Philippine shore. Two crewmen managed to paddle to a Vietnamese fishing vessel, the TGTG-90983-TS, which had sailed from Tien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta. The Vietnamese fishermen pulled the two Filipinos aboard, then went looking for the rest. All twenty-two crew members were eventually rescued -- by strangers who shared no common language but understood the oldest law of the sea. The Filipino crewmen were later transferred to the Philippine Navy vessel BRP Ramon Alcaraz. All but one returned home to San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, on 14 June. A single crewman stayed behind to oversee the towing of what remained of their boat, its wooden hull barely floating, back to port.

China's first response, on 13 June, was to call the sinking an "ordinary maritime accident." The next day, the Chinese Embassy in Manila posted a statement on Facebook claiming the Yuemaobinyu 42212 had been "suddenly besieged by 7 or 8 Filipino fishing boats" and that its lightning grid cable had accidentally snagged the Gem-Ver's pilothouse, causing the boat to founder. That Facebook post was quietly deleted. A revised statement on 18 June dropped the claim about besieging Filipino boats and called it an "accidental collision," offering sympathies. In August, the president of the Guangdong Fishery Mutual Insurance Association sent a letter of apology -- which Philippine Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio noted contained its own territorial assertion, placing the incident in "waters of Reed Bank, Nansha Island Group." Nansha is the Chinese name for the Spratly Islands. Reed Bank is not part of the Spratlys. Even an apology, it seemed, could carry a sovereignty claim.

Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana condemned the sinking on 12 June -- Philippine Independence Day -- calling the abandonment of twenty-two men at sea "cowardly." Philippine Navy chief Vice Admiral Robert Empedrad went further, stating that the ramming was "not an accident but a deliberate maneuver." Justice Carpio suggested the Yuemaobinyu 42212 was likely a Chinese maritime militia vessel, part of an estimated fleet of 300 boats crewed by civilian fishermen who receive military training, pay, and vessels with reinforced hulls. President Rodrigo Duterte waited five days before speaking, then described the event as a "maritime incident" and later stated he was allowing China to continue fishing in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. Captain Insigne declined the President's invitation to meet, described by his family as too traumatized to travel. His wife told reporters she would welcome Duterte's impeachment. The Vietnamese, for their part, issued a measured statement noting that their fishermen had simply complied with international maritime law -- the obligation to rescue those in distress at sea.