UNABLE to maintain solid footing on any of the small rocks, reefs, and shoals in the South China Sea, or that portion the government calls West Philippine Sea, the Philippine military grounded the decrepit BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal and stationed a group of Marines there to man the country’s frontier point.
These soldiers need food and other supplies, and so the Armed Forces and sometimes the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) had to rent private supply vessels to do the job. The reason for this is obvious: as China maintains that Ayungin Shoal is theirs, it will do whatever it takes to ward off foreign vessels trying to go near the place which they call Ren’ai Reef. Our Navy and Coast Guard would want to implement the resupply mission without necessarily engaging China.
Harassment at sea, ramming vessel against vessel, and attacks by water cannons have been commonplace in and around the shoal, so it should not be a surprise that it happened again last Sunday.
The National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said the AFP-contracted boat was conducting a regular and routine rotation and resupply mission to the Sierra Madre when “dangerous blocking maneuvers” conducted by a ship of the Chinese Coast Guard “caused it to collide” with the Philippine vessel.
‘… while China may not be forced by the UNGA to abide by the tribunal’s decision, “such a resolution could form part of the multi-pronged pro active approach to encourage China to seriously agree to a peaceful settlement of the dispute.”’
The task force condemned in the strongest degree the latest dangerous, irresponsible, and illegal actions of the Chinese Coast Guard, followed by a chorus of senators and congressmen saying the same thing, and still followed by the Department of Foreign Affairs’ filing another diplomatic protest and the summoning of the Chinese ambassador to Malacañang. We note that since the time of Teddy Boy Locsin in the foreign office, the Philippines has sent hundreds of diplomatic protests to the Chinese embassy on alleged harassment and bullying of Filipinos — fishermen, Coast Guard personnel, tourists.
All these are what we may call “by the book,” a series of predictable events that occurred as expected but would not alter the status quo as after these agitated fuzz, we are back to where we started on this issue.
President Marcos on Monday tried to veer away somewhat from the template and called for a command conference with members of the security cluster to discuss steps to be taken following this latest maritime incident.
The Presidential Communications Office (PCO) said the Chief Executive ordered the PCG to conduct an investigation “as mandated by international maritime laws.”
Nothing out of the ordinary was discussed or reported, if we go by reports of the PCO, since President Marcos himself appeared not prepared to act in a more decisive way other than filing a new diplomatic protest and summoning the Chinese ambassador who did not appear and was only represented by his deputy chief of mission.
Rep. France Castro and her colleague, former Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, at least have new ideas. They said the Philippines can lobby with ASEAN member-disputants to file a joint resolution at the United Nations General Assembly expressing the sense of the body that China should abide by the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling with regards to the nullification of China’s nine-dash-line.
Castro and Colmenares said while China may not be forced by the UNGA to abide by the tribunal’s decision, “such a resolution could form part of the multi-pronged pro-active approach to encourage China to seriously agree to a peaceful settlement of the dispute.”
At least, this suggestion is an idea that is out of the box, and probably worth studying. As it is, the President is showing that he is content in just monitoring and verbalizing tired rhetoric of concern, without taking any determined action.