On the day before the 9th anniversary this month of the so-called “victory” of the country in its Arbitration case against China over the Spratlys, the cabal of pro-West Philippine Sea disciples held a forum in Manila Polo Club in Makati to once again bolster the “Atin Ito” narrative.
The announcement of the event displayed the logo of the Stratbase ADR Institute and the flag of Australia, although the fingerprints of America are evident all over the place, considering that ADM Steve “Web” Koehier, commander of the US Pacific Fleet is the primary speaker, and one of the lecturers is Col. Raymond Powell, US Air Force (Ret.), director of Project Sealight and non-resident fellow of Stratbase Institute.
Any follower of the South China Sea (SCS) issue would by now be familiar with the positions taken by Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela, spokesman for the WPS of the Philippine Coast Guard, and Dr. Renato de Castro, professor in the International Studies Department of De La Salle University and also trustee, program convenor and non-resident fellow of Stratbase.
Boy, how much could be the budget for these people to actively promote their WPS narrative, stalking the jingoist tendency of our kababayans, pushing them to a war that only the US wants and thus endangering a whole generation of Filipinos.
Others in the group are Maj. Gen.Fabian Pedregosa, Rear Admiral Ray Vincent Trinidad, Col. Francel Margareth Taborlupa, Rear Admiral Rommel Jude Ong (Ret), Dr. Charmaine Willoughby, Dr. Sherwin Ona, Don McLain Gill and Mary Joyce Ilas-Reyes.
The group is supportive of the country’s two-pronged strategy to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity in the WPS, so they say. They reckon these are enhancing its external defense posture and working with like-minded partners.
With the latter, we surmise that these are the US, Australia, and Japan.
The speakers said the Philippines continues to champion peace by pursuing stronger defense cooperation across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, ultimately weaving a resilient and determined network committed to regional security.
Although Albert del Rosario has permanently said goodbye, this cabal continues to hammer home the tale that the country’s aggressive stance against China—which started when President Bongbong Marcos wholeheartedly embraced the US political line and rejected his predecessor’s foreign policy—is good for the nation.
One need not listen to their speeches to know that they are selling the idea of further deterioration of relations with China, something that the nine years of the Arbitral ruling has promoted. Nothing can be more hawkish than that.
It is even horrifying that the poster announcing the event on Facebook and other media shows a map of the Philippines with 22 points where the military facilities of the United States are located.
These are areas protected by the defunct EDCA, those that they call “agreed locations.”
Columnist Bobi Tiglao is baffled by the continuing drumming up of what he calls “the biggest fake news spread by US propaganda operatives.” This total lie, according to him, is as follows: “China ignores the 2016 arbitral ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration that declared illegal China’s claims in the South China Sea.”
Tiglao writes: “I cannot really understand why this fake news refuses to die when it is so crystal clear, in the very document of the ruling, that first, the Permanent Court of Arbitration had nothing to do with it except as registrar or keeper of the proceedings’ records. It was a mere five-person ad hoc panel of arbitrators that made the ruling, which was not a court of law. Second, as page 1 of the ruling emphasized:
“The Convention (UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, or Unclos), however, does not address the sovereignty of States over land territory. Accordingly, this tribunal has not been asked to, and does not purport to, make any ruling as to which State enjoys sovereignty over any land territory in the South China Sea, in particular with respect to the disputes concerning sovereignty over the Spratly Islands or Scarborough Shoal.”
“What the tribunal declared illegal was China’s “nine-dash line” drawn in a way encompassing most of the South China Sea” even before the People’s Republic of China was established. Whatever it is, China has never claimed that his line is the justification for its claims over the Spratlys and Scarborough Shoal. The line has nothing to do with China’s claims of sovereignty there. It claims these as part of its sovereignty as it had declared it so — formally even before World War I, which, however, France annexed in 1933.”
