Justice Antonio CarpioThe Philippine claim on the islands in the South China Sea , now being called West Philippine Sea by Philippine authorities, could have been stronger had past administrations been more decisive about asserting our claims in the area that is being claimed wholly by China and Taiwan and partially by, aside from the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei.
In a speech of Supreme Court Justice Antonio T. Carpio at the 50th anniversary celebration of Ateneo de Davao University last Oct. 29 on “The Rule of Law as the Great Equalizer’, he mentioned two instances when the Philippines could have done something but did not to strengthen the Philippine claim over the area that spans hundreds of thousands square kilometers including 53 islets.
The first time was right after the Philippines became a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982 and the other one was before China opted out in 2006 from the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism of UNCLOS.
A map without coordinatesAlthough the two Chinese speakers in the recent forum on the South China Sea organized by the prestigious Carlos P. Romulo Foundation with the Institute of Asian Studies ,did not specifically mentioned their country’s nine-dash-line map in asserting the supremacy of their claim over the South China Sea, the subject surfaced several times in the one-and-a half days discussions.
While the Chinese speakers – Zhang Liangfu, first secretary of the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs , and Chen Shiqiu , vice president of China UN Association and China Society of Human Rights Studies -skirted around the nine-dash-line map in asserting China’s claim over the South China Sea, parts of which are also being claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brune with Taiwan making the same over-encompassing claim as China, other speakers were forthright about their criticism about map submitted by China to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf on May 7, 2009.
One speaker during the no-attribution session said the nine dash line map “can’t be justified.”
There’s relative calm in the just recently turbulent waters of South China, which makes it the best time to explore ways to find lasting solutions to the area which is being claimed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, Philippines,Vietnam, and Taiwan.
On Oct. 17, the Carlos P. Romulo Foundation for Peace and Development chaired by former Foreign Secretary Roberto R. Romulo in collaboration with the Institute of South East Asian Studies, Singapore (ISEAS), will host a by- invitation- only forum at the Manila Polo Club in Makati City.
The CPR Foundation said there will be 23 notable former officials and authorities from academe speaking from ASEAN countries, China, Australia, India, Canada, the United States, and Europe. China has agreed to nominate three speakers for the event.
Boxall markerAn aggressive overflight reconnaissance over the Philippine-claimed isles in the oil-rich Spratlys group of islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) had been monitored and reported to the Philippine military shortly after Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario returned from his visit to Beijing.
On July 11, two unidentified aircraft were spotted in the airspace within the country’s 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, according to a spot report seen by VERA Files.
Filipino fishermen sighted the aircraft, a gray chopper and a green plane they said resembles a “Tora Tora” or a T-28 fighter plane, flying low at Boxall Reef located 163 nautical miles from the Philippine Navy’s naval station in Ulugan Bay or 97 nautical miles from the southernmost tip of mainland Palawan.
A group of fishermen saw the green plane at 9 a.m. and another group spotted the gray chopper at 10:40 a.m., heading in the same northern direction, the report said.
The Tora Tora-like plane was hovering in the area at an altitude of about 20 feet and the chopper at about 30 feet, it said.
Quoting the fishermen who reported the sighting of the chopper, the military said, “There were more or less five crew on board and wearing green uniform. The small markings on its undercarriage were unreadable.”
The red line is the coverage of the JMSU. The area to the right of the blue line is Philippine-claimed territory.Retired Philippine diplomat Alberto Encomienda quipped when he delivered his paper “The South China Sea: Back to the Future through Cooperation” that with all meetings and conferences, as many as 20 in one year, being held on the South China Sea, it’s no longer “confidence building.”
We are now experiencing “conference building,” he said.
But as Winston Churchill wisely said, “To jaw-jaw always is better than to war-war.”
The organizers of last week’s Manila Conference on the South China Sea deserve congratulations for a substantial program. They got excellent speakers. Even if many of the papers presented overlapped with each other, which cannot be avoided because they revolved around one subject, they all helped in the deepening of understanding of the issue that keeps on popping up on an otherwise stable region.
(I did this story for VERA Files. It was sent to all media outlets.)
China's map of its claim in the South China Sea. Take note that it includes waters near the Philippines.Hardliners in the Chinese Military Academy are raring to teach China’s neighbors “a lesson” for intruding into the South China Sea, which they consider part of their national territory, a Chinese Southeast Asian expert said.
Shen Hong-Fang, professor and senior research fellow at the Center of Southeast Asian studies at Xiamen University, spoke of “a new upsurge” of Chinese nationalism set off by claims made by some Asian countries, including the Philippines, over territory China considers its own.
“Some suggested that it is the right time to adopt necessary measures to teach some countries a lesson,” Shen said, startling participants at the two-day Conference on the South China Sea held in Manila last week.
She added there are those who think it justifiable “for China to launch a war against the invaders.”
The Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia have staked claims over some of the 160 islands that constitute the Spratlys in the South China Sea. These countries, along with Indonesia which is a non-claimant, have filed protests before the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) over the “nine-dash line map” China submitted to prove its claim.
PH-occupied Pag-asa island in Kalayaan Island GroupHeaven forbid, but in case there’s a shooting war in the disputed islands of the Spratlys, don’t expect the United States military to come to the aid of the Philippines, South China Sea experts said.
I asked the question if the United States military would enter the picture in case of an armed conflict in the South China Sea in the light of the excitement of some Philippine officials and media over the statement of U.S. State Secretary Hillary and U.S. Ambassador Harry Thomas about continuing to work with the Philippines on all issues including related to the South China Sea conflict and stands by the Philippine “by our commitment under the Mutual Defense Treaty.”
USS Chung Hoon approaching Puerto Princesa Bay to participate in PH-US military exercises
By Tessa Jamandre
VERA Files
Amid renewed tensions in the disputed South China Sea, the Philippine military is batting to revive the concept of an anti-communist collective defense of Southeast Asia to enable the country to enter into a leasing arrangement of patrol boats with the United States.
An operational lease would allow the Philippine Navy to use newer U.S. ships, Navy Vice Commander Rear Admiral Orwen Cortez told a press conference following the opening ceremony of the PH-US Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) in Puerto Princesa on Tuesday.
“We have experience with this during the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) way back in the ‘50s when U.S. ships came to the Philippines, so that was the background and we’re trying to revive that concept,” he said.
Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates at Pentagon.With the ongoing positioning by claimant parties in the contested waters of the South China Sea as backdrop, the Foreign Service Institute of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs is holding a two-day conference on the South China Sea that should temper the tension among affected parties.
The conference to be held on July 5 and 6 at the Dusit Hotel in Makati will have as its theme, “The South China Sea: Toward a Region of Peace, Cooperation, and Progress.”
The FSI is partnering with the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and the National Defense College of the Philippines in this conference that will bring in experts on the South China Sea.
While Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie was making a “goodwill visit” in Manila less than two weeks ago, his people were attempting to set up structures in an island, 126 nautical miles away from Palawan.
The Philippines has protested the constructions which is a clear violation of the 2002 Asean-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea that no new structures should be built in disputed areas in the South China Sea.
Photo from Philippine StarBy Victor Reyes
Malaya
The military has monitored new intrusions by China at a Philippine-claimed island in the disputed Spratlys group of islands, where the Chinese put up buoys and posts that were subsequently dismantled by Filipino fishermen.
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin he would bring up the matter before the 2011 Asian Security Forum or the Shangri-la Dialogue to be held in Singapore this weekend, which will be attended by defense chiefs in Asian region.
Gazmin said the first intrusion occurred on May 21 when Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie and his party arrived Manila for a goodwill visit.
The second intrusion occurred on May 24 or a day after Gazmin and Liang met in Camp Aguinaldo where the two defense chiefs vowed not to take steps to affect stability in Spratlys, also known as the Kalayaan Island Group.
