By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

Part Two of Three: Poking the Bear or Chasing the Dragon?                                              

The president can lie before television and the world, but he has poked the bear, so to speak, and worse, been chasing the dragon, at least politically.

Our foreign policy under Marcos has been on the wrong direction since he applied the handbrakes on our bilateral relations with China and pivoted to the United States last year by adding four more American bases to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.  So why should he wonder why he is having sleepless nights when he has created his own conundrum?

The chief architect of our foreign policy was even oblivious of the implications of his past and near-future actions as he gasped for words in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Haslinda Amin, incongruently denying Manila would run to Washington “when something goes wrong.”

The interview revealed a dichotomy in his mind, “That’s not the way we treat it. We do this for ourselves. We do this because we feel that we have to do it. And it’s not at the behest of the United States,” he said.

Asked how confident he was that the US would go to war with China over the dispute in the South China Sea, Marcos tried to avoid the question and ended contradicting himself, “We want to do everything we possibly can together with our partners and our allies to avoid that situation. This is not poking the bear. We are trying to do quite the opposite.”

This man has just arrived from trips to Australia and Germany serving as Uncle Sam’s proxy and is scheduled to sign a trilateral pact with the United States and Japan. The common denominator here is military cooperation.

Discussions on this pact was opened with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as early as Marcos’ five-day visit on February last year where the two Asian leaders agreed to “increase the defense capabilities of their respective countries, and further strengthen overall security cooperation.” The Philippine News Service said the official statement from Malacanang indicated this will be done at the level of an “alliance” including strategic reciprocal port calls and aircraft visits, transfer of more defense equipment and technology, continuous cooperation on previously-transferred defense equipment, and capacity building.

So, whose behest does this pact serve when Marcos and Kishida goes to Washington DC to secure US President Joe Biden’s imprimatur?

Near-tipping point

Marcos continues to sing a discordant tune. “We have not instigated any kind of conflict; we have not instigated any kind of confrontation.”

Facts show that is a doublespeak.

The protocol between China and the Philippines resupplying Philippine marines stationed at the derelict naval vessel grounded at Ayungin Shoal, has been affirmed during the BS Aquino and Rodrigo Duterte administrations and observed by both parties.

It was only during the Marcos watch that tensions have escalated to almost a tipping point necessitating Xi Jinping to alert the Peoples Liberation Army to face any conflict.

The Philippine provocation has not stopped. As we speak, report of another incident of the Chinese Coast Guard applying water cannon to an “unscheduled” resupply mission to BRP Sierra Madre is in the headlines.

In a response appearing in the Manila Times, Manila-based think tank Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute (ACPSSI) President Herman Tiu Laurel, noted that it was important to keep in mind that “BRP Sierra Madre is a military ship deliberately grounded there militarizing the situation. Hence, UNCLOS cannot be invoked in this case.”

It will be recalled that in Paragraph 1161-62, the 2016 Arbitral ruling that this does not fall under its jurisdiction because its is “quintessentially a militarized situation”.

That being so, the Asian century Philippines president added “the use of water cannon is among the internationally accepted non-lethal or less-lethal tools of law enforcement.”

In addition, Laurel interjected that “Everyone’s concern should be the published ‘hidden’ agenda of the United States to build a combined forward operating base, hence the blockading of construction materials delivery to BRP Sierra Madre.”

China speaks up

Zong Haiping of Global Times exposed the bankruptcy of the claim by Marcos that the Philippine side has not instigated any kind of confrontation: “…ulterior motives are not difficult to see through. For a long time, the Philippines has been causing trouble and provocations toward China on issues related to China’s Ren’ai Jiao (Ayungin Shoal) and Huangyan Dao (Scarborough Shoal) while internationally accusing China of “bullying the weak,” and packaging itself as a “victim”.

He said that while China has been resolutely defending its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights, it has made great efforts to handle the China-Philippines disputes and promote the cooling of the maritime situation from the perspective of bilateral relations and maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea.

“This is not a secret, and it is not afraid to be known to the outside world. However, the Philippines has maliciously damaged the atmosphere of communication and cooperation between the two sides, deliberately rejecting China’s goodwill.

Zong disclosed that the 11 proposals which the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs sat on for over a year now, involve practical cooperation proposals in specific areas such as fisheries, marine environmental protection, marine scientific research, maritime search and rescue, and marine plastic waste management accounted for two-thirds, including proposals drafted by China at the request of the Philippines. 

The Global Times analyst said that DFA claims to have convened relevant domestic departments for research, but has long been “researching without responding, dragging without answering”, and even “refusing to negotiate”. He noted that the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea clearly stipulates that disputes should be peacefully resolved through negotiation and consultation:

“Anyone who truly respects the rule of law would not deny that resolving disputes through negotiation and consultation by the directly involved parties best reflects the voluntary will and sovereign equality of all countries, and is also a faithful practice of international law and basic principles of international relations.”

Zong added: “Anyone with a little international common sense would understand that if countries use excuses that do not conform to their own claims to create obstacles to resolving disputes, international disputes will never be resolved. Therefore, the ‘legal card’ cannot cover up the Philippines’ passive dialogue and blatant infringement.

“On the one hand, the Philippines has long ignored China’s proposals for practical maritime cooperation, while on the other hand, it has welcomed the interference of external countries such as the United States in the South China Sea situation.”

Southeast Asian NATO?

The scale of joint maritime exercises between the US and the Philippines, including in the South China Sea, has reached new highs and from September last year to now, US-Philippines joint patrols in the South China Sea have increased five-fold.

Marcos’ uncle Jose Manuel Romualdez, who is his Ambassador to Washington and bruited to mentor him in foreign policy, has openly drumming up active participation from NATO and its partners, such as to-date the US, Japan, and Australia and recently Germany and Czech Republic for Philippine resource exploration and development plans for South China Sea.

Zong concluded, “this practice of playing ‘double standards’ and ‘making distant friends while attacking close ones’ exposes the Philippines’ ulterior motives in the South China Sea issue, which are not to resolve disputes with China through peaceful negotiations, not to promote the normalization of the South China Sea situation, but to continuously involve external forces in the South China Sea to continue to “fish in troubled waters” and achieve unilateral benefits.”

Loaded premise

During a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on his working visit to Berlin, Marcos’ lame excuse is “We have not rejected any proposal that China made to us, but the premise is something we question.”

But this premise, Mr. President, is an old tale that American and British lawyers have planted on Noynoy Aquino’s cerebellum that cost our taxpayers $7 million (P385 million) calling for arbitral proceedings against China that used the Permanent Court of Arbitration as registry from January 2013 to July 2016.

The Philippines Daily Inquirer editorial of October 25, 2023, pointed to the loaded ice: “We’ve already shown that we can successfully plead our case in the international arbitral tribunal which handed us a sweet moral victory in 2016.”

But the editors heightened the intrigue prescribing another pyrrhic route, “We must now go before the United Nations General Assembly, tedious and long though the process may be, to state our case against China for all the world to see and hear.

As an alternative, they hinted at provocations at sea: “Our military strength may be puny compared to China’s but our moral weapons are nothing short of nuclear, figuratively speaking, when juxtaposed against our neighbor’s pretenses and duplicity. We don’t want a physical confrontation with China though we now have some means to inflict the proverbial “bloody nose” on them thanks to our strengthening military stance.”

Or information war: “But we need to squeeze China’s pressure points where it is most sensitive to pain: the country’s carefully curated image of respectability on the international stage.”

The problem with this premise is that it claims moral and legal ascendancy to shame China, but it employs the United States’ lawfare tactics.

Judicious way forward

It is not our role and responsibility to adjudicate China.  

Not only is it bad diplomacy, it is not diplomacy at all. Our objective in dealing with challenges with other countries should be conflict avoidance and constructive engagement, and in case of disputes is conflict resolution.

We are in the United Nations not to render a “bloody nose” to another country fishing for a false flag but to build relationships that would best benefit and serve our people’s needs and help make the world a better, peaceful place to live in.

Marcos even conveniently disrespects the wisdom of the Arbitral award itself in Paragraph 1198, “the root of the disputes presented by the Philippines in this arbitration lies not in any intention on the part of China or the Philippines to infringe on the legal rights of the other, but rather…in fundamentally different understandings of the respective rights under the Convention in the waters of the South China Sea.”

The position of China is so simple, it only requires common sense to appreciate. China’s red line is its territorial sovereignty that they have fought hard to regain after 100 years of colonial humiliation and wars. That historic right became a fact through the statutory construction we have discussed earlier from 1834 to 1975.    

What Marcos is doing is attempting to supersede that sovereignty with our claims for sovereignty rights to 200 nautical miles of “exclusive economic zone” from our 2009 baselines.

The president is obviously ignorant of the asymmetry between sovereignty and sovereign rights. His speeches prove so.

Meeting halfway

China has offered to meet us halfway through bilateral talks.

On the request of Ho Chi Minh, the Peoples Republic of China under Premier Chou En Lai handed over to Vietnam two-dash lines and the Bach Long Vi island in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1957.

Nothing prevents us from negotiating with China for the common use of areas where our sovereignty rights claims overlap with their sovereignty claims.

A modus vivendi is already ongoing on matters of fisheries. As a further show of good faith. China has offered a 60-40 sharing (in favor of the Philippines) of oil and gas harvests from a joint exploration of Reed Ban (Recto Reef), with all costs shouldered by the Chinese-side.  

But acting duplicitous and using the 1987 Constitution as a scapegoat, just as Duterte’s foreign affairs secretary Teddy Boy Locsin asserted to sabotage earlier negotiations, is a treasonous cop out.

Sovereignty rights do not bestow upon the Philippines “ownership” of and “sovereignty” over any allowable EEZ.  As we have explained in Part One, the Supreme Court itself has already clarified this in GR187167 which had former magistrate Antonio Carpio as ponente. EEZ is not territorial sea.

The only other way this asymmetry can be overcome, given that China has possession and effective control of the area, is through a zero-sum framework, and that means “war”.

If not war, then why is Marcos calling the help of third-party bullies from far neighborhoods?

To be continued.

Next: “West Philippine Sea” poisons the SCS debates

Loaded premise

During a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on his working visit to Berlin, Marcos’ lame excuse is “We have not rejected any proposal that China made to us, but the premise is something we question.”

But this premise, Mr. President, is an old tale that American and British lawyers have planted on Noynoy Aquino’s cerebellum that cost our taxpayers $7 million (P385 million) calling for arbitral proceedings against China that used the Permanent Court of Arbitration as registry from January 2013 to July 2016.

The Philippines Daily Inquirer editorial of October 25, 2023, pointed to the loaded ice: “We’ve already shown that we can successfully plead our case in the international arbitral tribunal which handed us a sweet moral victory in 2016.”

But the editors heightened the intrigue prescribing another pyrrhic route, “We must now go before the United Nations General Assembly, tedious and long though the process may be, to state our case against China for all the world to see and hear.

As an alternative, they hinted at provocations at sea: “Our military strength may be puny compared to China’s but our moral weapons are nothing short of nuclear, figuratively speaking, when juxtaposed against our neighbor’s pretenses and duplicity. We don’t want a physical confrontation with China though we now have some means to inflict the proverbial “bloody nose” on them thanks to our strengthening military stance.”

Or information war: “But we need to squeeze China’s pressure points where it is most sensitive to pain: the country’s carefully curated image of respectability on the international stage.”

The problem with this premise is that it claims moral and legal ascendancy to shame China, but it employs the United States’ lawfare tactics.

Judicious way forward

It is not our role and responsibility to adjudicate China.  

Not only is it bad diplomacy, it is not diplomacy at all. Our objective in dealing with challenges with other countries should be conflict avoidance and constructive engagement, and in case of disputes is conflict resolution.

We are in the United Nations not to render a “bloody nose” to another country fishing for a false flag but to build relationships that would best benefit and serve our people’s needs and help make the world a better, peaceful place to live in.

Marcos even conveniently disrespects the wisdom of the Arbitral award itself in Paragraph 1198, “the root of the disputes presented by the Philippines in this arbitration lies not in any intention on the part of China or the Philippines to infringe on the legal rights of the other, but rather…in fundamentally different understandings of the respective rights under the Convention in the waters of the South China Sea.”

The position of China is so simple, it only requires common sense to appreciate. China’s red line is its territorial sovereignty that they have fought hard to regain after 100 years of colonial humiliation and wars. That historic right became a fact through the statutory construction we have discussed earlier from 1834 to 1975.    

What Marcos is doing is attempting to supersede that sovereignty with our claims for sovereignty rights to 200 nautical miles of “exclusive economic zone” from our 2009 baselines.

The president is obviously ignorant of the asymmetry between sovereignty and sovereign rights. His speeches prove so.

Meeting halfway

China has offered to meet us halfway through bilateral talks.

On the request of Ho Chi Minh, the Peoples Republic of China under Premier Chou En Lai handed over to Vietnam two-dash lines and the Bach Long Vi island in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1957.

Nothing prevents us from negotiating with China for the common use of areas where our sovereignty rights claims overlap with their sovereignty claims.

A modus vivendi is already ongoing on matters of fisheries. As a further show of good faith. China has offered a 60-40 sharing (in favor of the Philippines) of oil and gas harvests from a joint exploration of Reed Ban (Recto Reef), with all costs shouldered by the Chinese-side.  

But acting duplicitous and using the 1987 Constitution as a scapegoat, just as Duterte’s foreign affairs secretary Teddy Boy Locsin asserted to sabotage earlier negotiations, is a treasonous cop out.

Sovereignty rights do not bestow upon the Philippines “ownership” of and “sovereignty” over any allowable EEZ.  As we have explained in Part One, the Supreme Court itself has already clarified this in GR187167 which had former magistrate Antonio Carpio as ponente. EEZ is not territorial sea.

The only other way this asymmetry can be overcome, given that China has possession and effective control of the area, is through a zero-sum framework, and that means “war”.

If not war, then why is Marcos calling the help of third-party bullies from far neighborhoods?

To be continued.

Next: “West Philippine Sea” poisons the SCS debates

   

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