By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

Second of a Series of 2: The Chief of Staff’s Baptism of Fire into Realpolitik

Project Myoushu is recycled old hat.

After repeated cat-and-mouse chasing with the Chinese Coast Guard in the South China Seas, the Benigno Aquino administration, realizing our “black-and-white” strategies shaming China as a bully were not working, bent backwards and returned to observing the minimum protocol agreed upon President Joseph Estrada with China regarding the unimpeded resupply of our military personnel aboard the BRP Sierra Madre.

This will explain why for 24 years all our soldiers who have been assigned there have survived their mission.

Fromer Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin gave us a window of that protocol when he assured Chinese Ambassador to Manila Ma Keqing on BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal: “We will not violate the agreement not to construct new structures. We told them we’re only bringing supplies for our troops there, like water, food. There will also be rotation of troops because we can’t put our men there permanently or they’ll go crazy.” This is not only on record, but published by at least the Philippines Daily Inquirer on May 19, 2013.

During the time of President Rodrigo Duterte, resupply missions have mostly been uninterrupted, because he allowed the Philippine and Chinese coast guard to directly communicate with each other. The Chinese were kept on the loop every time a trip would be sent, sometimes even escorted by a Chinese Coast Guard vessel to ensure its safety and completion.

In international diplomacy, that is called cooperation.

But to pre-stage American intentions of converting BRP Sierra Madre into a forward operating base, a covert conspiracy birthed between Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute and Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, injecting Raymond Powell’s Project Myoushu into the equation, to once again stir the waters in the South China Seas.

Since January 2023, this American retired air force colonel, not Bongbong Marcos or Enrique Manalo or Gibo Teodoro, has been lording Philippine foreign affairs and defense operations, backed up by US Navy logistics and a $500 million America Competes budget to stir tensions in the South China Seas between China and the Philippines and pre-stage more US bases in our country.

Despite Stratbase being an adjunct of Washington DC’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), however, Powell was inserted into the PH scenario for a totally different motivation other than that related to “protecting Philippine sovereignty”.

Stratbase’s surviving co-chairman Manny Pangilinan is the managing director and chief operating officer of First Pacific Holdings and the owner of the majority stocks of Forum Energy, who has been trying to create conditions to recover his old old investments in oil and gas exploration at Reed Bank. (Its late chairman is Albert del Rosario, who is major stockholder of First Pacific and has ties with Philex Petroleum Corporation that holds a 60.49 percent interest in Forum Energy.)     

In March 2011, China Marine Surveillance patrol ships aggressively interdicted the MV Veritas Voyager, a French owned and Singapore-flagged survey ship chartered by UK-listed Forum Energy to survey the Sampaguita gas field in Reed Bank, which Forum Energy operated under Service Contract 72 (SC-72) awarded by the Philippine government. This incident was one of several reasons that prompted Manila to file arbitration proceedings against China, in 2013.  

Read: Manila Faces Post-Arbitration Dilemma Over Reed Bank by Jeremy Maxie https://www.eastwest.ngo/idea/manila-faces-post-arbitration-dilemma-over-reed-bank

Read: It’s Time to Build Combined Forward Operating Base Sierra Madre by Blake Herzinger https://warontherocks.com/2023/09/its-time-to-build-combined-forward-operating-base-sierra-madre/

Read: Lighting Up the Maritime Gray Zone by Captain Benjamin Goirigolzarri, U.S. Air Force https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/november/lighting-maritime-gray-zone

Re-igniting Old Tensions with Lawfare

So who but President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. himself recently denied any knowledge of any protocol between China and the Philippines dealing with BRP Sierra Madre, and while admitting ignorance, announced that “if there were”, he was rescinding whatever agreements earlier arrived at regarding the BRP Sierra Madre?

Nobody in government, not the DFA, not the DND or the AFP, nor the NSC or the PSG, reminded the President that this would convert what the Arbitral ruling (Paragraph 1161) called as a “quintessentially militarized area” into fair game.

The Chinese have no time engaging what Powell calls “Go” with us, a board game that he has claimed inspired him to conceptualize Project Myoushu.

Anybody with intelligence quotient of over 70 of a moron, should have anticipated that China would deploy a huge flotilla of ships to block the “Christmas Convoy” of civilian vessels that was scheduled to deliver gifts to troops stationed in several Philippine features in the South China Seas.

Rightfully so, the convoy’s organizers decided to abort the trip following the latest incident at Ayungin.

The trouble is our leaders think the Chinese have “stupid” written on their foreheads. Any employee of the Philippine security leadership who is worth his salt can discern that this convoy which is an extension of Project Myoushu’s information war, has inherent risks and pronounced dangers.

Under Article 19 of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Seas, the Christmas Convoy is not covered by the principle of innocent passage as “any act of propaganda aimed at affecting the defense or security of the coastal State” is considered prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of another claimant state.

The foregoing exposes Brawner’s fallacy in claiming, “Let me reiterate what is settled and widely recognized: Ayungin Shoal is within our exclusive economic zone, any foreign claim of sovereignty over it is baseless and absolutely contrary to international law.” What’s settled and widely recognized, baffles me.

The general continued on to make a fool of himself. “Bajo de Masinloc (Scarborough Shoal) is sovereign Philippine territory and an integral part of our archipelago. No one but the Philippines has a legitimate right or legal basis to operate anywhere in the West Philippine Sea.”

What proof does Brawner has that this is “sovereign Philippine territory” and “integral part of the Philippine archipelago?”

If this were even half-true, we are in even bigger trouble because President Noynoy Aquino, on the wrong advice of Albert del Rosario, his “oil and gas” businessman secretary of foreign affairs, conceded control of the area to China by withdrawing the BRP Gregorio del Pilar from a standoff it created on April 8, 2012, after the attempted apprehension by the Philippine Navy of eight mainland Chinese fishing vessels near the shoal.

This is what is settled and widely recognized. How Brawner has missed this is a dangerous faux pas. Worse, he is even spreading the lie outside of his department feigning to be a diplomat:

“Nag-usap kami ni Ambassador Huang Xilian noong minsang nagkita kami. Sinabi ko sa kanya na that is not your territory. In fact, sinabi ko, that is our Exclusive Economic Zone. So, please do not block our resupply ships,” he said in a radio interview.

(I talked to the Chinese amabassador when we met once. I told him that this is not your territory, in fact, that is our Exclusive Economic Zone. So, please do not block our resupply ships.)

“Sinabihan ko rin siya na huwag nilang i-block ‘yung Christmas convoy. Sabi ko mga civilians ‘yun, do not block, they’re just merely bringing Christmas food and gifts to our soldiers and the communities in the West Philippine Sea.”

(I also told him not to block the Christmas convoy. I informed him that they were civilians and merely bringing Christmas food and gifts to our soldiers and the communities in the West Philippine Sea.)

However Brawner failed in his short-lived attempt at diplomacy – Xilian replied by insisting that the area was China’s territory.

“Sinabi nga niya na, ‘You are provoking us.’ So sinabi ko sa kanya, ‘No, you are the ones provoking us,” Brawner added.

(He said ‘You are provoking us.’ So I told him, ‘No, you are the ones provoking us.)

Over the weekend, the China Coast Guard (CCG) fired water cannons on Philippine vessels in two separate incidents.

On Saturday, a CCG vessel water cannoned vessels of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) headed to Bajo de Masinloc to distribute supplies to fisherfolk in the area.

On Sunday, Philippine vessels on a regular rotation and resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal was also water cannoned by the CCG. According to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), one of the vessels, the M/L Kalayaan, suffered serious engine damage and had to be towed back to Palawan.

For its part, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing’s Coast Guard “took necessary measures against the Philippine ships in accordance with domestic and international law.”

“The operations were professional, restrained, reasonable and legal,” she said adding China had “lodged stern representations” with Manila.

Continuing education for military brass

Meanwhile, it is embarrassing that Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos, chief of the AFP Western Command, like Brawner, apes Powell narratives as he revealed the growing paranoia within our military establishment: “It’s already escalating. As I said, it started with laser (pointing), then we’re now at water cannon(ing). After the water cannon is probably high-speed ramming, and attempts to board our vessels, which is something that we will not allow them to do.”

“So these are short of armed attack because they know that (armed attacks) will trigger our Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) with the United States. Under the 1951 pact, Manila and Washington agree that an armed attack in the Pacific Area on either the Philippines or the United States would be dangerous and that they would act to meet common dangers in accordance with constitutional processes,” Carlos explained.

Before warmongering, Carlos must first educate himself with the Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW) Reference Book of the US Department of Defense that includes green lasers, water cannons and acoustics that conforms with the Geneva Convention protocols. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2015/14-10078/14-10078-3.pdf

 Being a 1989 graduate of the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, Carlos ought to know that chasing “constitutional processes” means US congressional fiat and appropriation. He must be reminded that the Americans led Vlodomyr Zelensky to war with Russia but it has been 3 months now since the Ukrainian president started lobbying Washington DC for the US promise of an additional $100 billion to defeat Valdimir Putin. The figure has gone down to $61 billion and the White House will run out of money to support Ukraine by the end of the month. Congress is supposed to leave for the holidays in a matter of days.

Carlos is not stupid. He surely knows the US cannot fight a third war simultaneous to its engagement in Ukraine and Gaza. But he should leave the Mutual Defense Treaty to President Marcos with a caveat:

The 2016 Arbitral Award Paragraph 1156 declared, “Article 299(1) then expressly provides in unequivocal terms that “[a] dispute . . . excepted by a declaration made under Article 298 from the dispute settlement procedures provided for in section 2 may be submitted to such procedures only by agreement of the parties to the dispute. Such a declaration stands until modified or withdrawn.”

Do not let the technical language mislead you, the simple translation is “bilateral negotiation”, and be forewarned that this bridge has been repeatedly crossed and breached before. So it is not to be taken in bad faith.

Our problem is that our president today is so after-the-factly.

We still have to see even a hint of the “steeled determination” he recently crowed about.

   

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