THE need to further strengthen the Philippines’ military alliance with the United States amid the growing tension in the West Philippine Sea is a fact that was underscored by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s trip to the US.
Marcos likes the sound-and-fury of his earlier statement on the issue, and so it is not surprising that he reiterated it at the Daniel L. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. The President maintained the Philippines would never give an inch of its territory to any foreign power.
“I have said it before and I will say it again, the Philippines will not give a single square inch of our territory [to] any foreign power. The law is clear as defined by the UNCLOS and the final and binding 2016 award on the South China Sea arbitration,” he said.
‘The best thing for the President to do is help keep the tension to the minimum, use all legal, peaceful and non-confrontational methods such as diplomacy and negotiation…’
While this statement may sound convincing and brave enough, it was followed by a disclosure from the President that China’s reclamation activities in the South China Sea have come closer and closer to the Philippine coastline, actually just 60 nautical miles from the country’s shore.
If true, then the Chinese security forces are indeed way deep into Philippine territory; they are encroaching on our exclusive economic zone, using their dubious 10-dash-line claim in almost the whole of the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait and citing historical events to back their claim.
Confirming this is happening, Marcos is actually painting himself in a corner, for Filipinos will ask him to flesh out his oft-repeated mantra that he will not allow the giving of even a square inch of Philippine territory to a foreign power.
How will Marcos handle the outright stealing of part of Philippine territory by the Chinese which is said to be constructing a military base? Will another, more strongly-worded note verbale to the Chinese embassy in Manila suffice? Or will he follow suggestions to recall the Philippine ambassador to Beijing, even if temporarily?
Marcos’ only response, as it were, was to bank on the nation’s long-running friendly relationship with the United States. He said: “The United States is our, I would say, our oldest and most traditional partner and that has been in various forms, ongoing over a hundred years. And I think, it serves as well to remember that the United States is the Philippines’ only treaty partner.”
“The heightening tension in the West Philippine Sea… the increasing tensions in the South China Sea requires that we partner with our allies and our friends around the world, so as to come to some kind of resolution and to maintain the peace,” he added.
The President, who is the chief architect of Philippine foreign policy, should by now admit that the hundreds of diplomatic protests the Philippines has sent to the Chinese embassy over Beijing’s hostile actions in the disputed waters are just pieces of paper that China nonchalantly dismisses on a regular basis.
It is a long shot to expect that the issue of the South China Sea would be resolved during Marcos’ term. The best thing for the President to do is help keep the tension to the minimum, use all legal, peaceful and non-confrontational methods such as diplomacy and negotiation, and seek support from our traditional friends and allies in the ASEAN and the West to somehow put pressure on China to respect international law and maritime order.
