By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

Part One of Three: Marcos Foreign Policy Reeks of Mental Gymnastics

What happens when fake news rule public debate instead of hard facts? What happens when propaganda replaces rational analysis in the democratic space?

It creates a syndrome that encourages mental gymnastics.

A classic case-study is occurring in the Philippine Senate when Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, chairman of the Committee on National Defense and Security, led some senators in concluding that the yearly Balikatan joint military exercises between the Philippines and the United States should be reviewed because it is not designed for combat operations against other nations.

   The senator just threw Article II Section 2 of the Philippine Constitution out of the window: “The Philippines renounces war as an instrument of national policy, adopts the generally accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the land and adheres to the policy of peace, equality, justice, freedom, cooperation, and amity with all nations.”

Psychotherapist Shemena Johnson, Psy.D., L.M.F.T. says that “mental gymnastics” happen when our brains spiral into destructive thought patterns—making up excuses or arguments for unjustifiable decisions or situations. In short, she adds they are “all the thoughts that are within play to keep you from doing that exact thing you need to do.”

Jingoism and analysis paralysis

 Frankly I was not shocked when I learned that our scores in the Programme for International Student Assessment ranked us 7878 in 2018 and 78/81 in 2022. The half-witted epidemic has long reached the highest levels of leadership of our country and perhaps making its ugly manifestation in how the Marcos government sets its governance priorities.

The etymology of “Jingoism” did not come from Senator Jinggoy Estrada. The worsds means – a political perspective that advocates the use of threats or military force in foreign relations that is Opposed to finding a peaceful or diplomatic solution, often in pursuit of nationalism in the form of aggressive foreign policy.

Estrada’s left brain said “Responding to or utilizing it to impede China’s coercive actions against Philippine vessels is outside the scope of these joint military drills.”

His right brain, however, quotes the propaganda lining our government’s foreign policy: “While some of this year’s Balikatan exercises occur in disputed areas, the purpose of the drills is not to challenge other nations’ actions directly, reiterating the Philippines’ unwavering commitment to upholding international law and promoting regional peace.

Does the senator even know that military exercises even inside our 12 nautical mile territorial sea, is prohibited under the UN Convention of the Laws of the Seas as a violation of the principle of innocent passage? With more reason, in dalliance with a foreign country that is not a coastal or claimant state, and not a member of UNCLOS at that – such as the United States.

The senator is definitely uninformed that the United States just flew into Cagayan province a Typhon Weapon System that is capable of launching Tomahawk subsonic and low flying cruise offensive missiles that is capable of carrying nuclear warheads with an operational range of over 2,500 kilometers.

PH poses radial danger

Draw a straight line from Cagayan all the way to Guam and round the radius onto a circle and you will find out that it will not only reach China, but Japan and Korea on the north, Thailand and Indochina (including Vietnam) on the east, and Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia on the south.

I do not want to take North Korea’s wacko Kim Jung Un’s opinion on this. But the Malaysian foreign minister, Mohamad Hasan said that his country opposes “external forces” meddling in the South China Sea.

Last year, Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Friday said ASEAN cannot become a proxy for other countries, as US-China tensions rise over issues in the Asia-Pacific: “We in ASEAN are committed to strengthening the unity and solidity as well as centrality in ASEAN to guard the peace and stability in the region.”

But the best quotable quote came from Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as he lays down the risks for the Philippines as tension with China escalates: “The Americans are (your) treaty allies, but are you sure you (Filipinos) want to get into a fight where you will be the battleground?”

Estrada is not alone in mental gymnastics. Senator Francis Tolentino registered a weirdo rejoinder saying that the exercises’ purpose is not to stop China’s harassment of civilian vessels but highlights the need to uphold international law. He did not specify what international law and what provision he was talking about.

Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva said the purpose of the Balikatan exercises is merely to enhance the country’s defense systems’ interoperability with our allies, but he did not comment on the influx of “offensive” armaments one of which we already mentioned earlier.

“Whatever they do will never take away our sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea, especially the Scarborough Shoal, which is clearly within our exclusive economic zone,” he added.

The WPS myth

Again, we have to clarify here that there is no “West Philippine Sea”.

The senators are mumbling an ephitet that is merely another mental gymnastic by former President BS Aquino III in a mere AO#29 issued on September 5, 2012 for a nomenclature to the maritime areas on the western side of the Philippine archipelago asserting the country’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction.

To start with, WPS is not officially recognized by the United Nations nor is it registered with the International Hydrographic Association. A quick check with the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority reveals that while it has designed a map showing WPS, it remains unofficial because it has no enabling act of the Philippine Congress.

Second, we do not have sovereignty over Ayungin Shoal, where the current Philippine-China incidents are happening because it is beyond our 12 nautical mile territorial sea from the Palawan baselines. The irony is that while the 2016 Arbitral Award said it is within 200 nautical miles from Philippine baselines, no exclusive economic zone can operate there because of the existence of a “quintessentially military situation” (AA Paragraph 1161).

A militarized EEZ is an oxymoron – sovereign rights and militarization cancel each other.

Isn’t incongruous that it was Senator Estrada’s father (President Joseph Estrada) that militarized the situation there when he allowed a Philippine gray ship, BRP Sierra Madre, to be grounded there in violation if international maritime and salvage laws.

But the individuating note that the Marcos presidency deliberately disregards is that China is in possession of Ayungin Shoal, asserting primacy of its sovereignty by virtue of historic rights, by exercising law enforcement and effective control. The same goes for Scarborough.

Stale Nine-Dash-Line narrative

It has stuck to the worn-out argument of the hoax that former Associate Justice Anotbnio Carpio has loaded the entire discourse – that the Arbitral Award has said that the “nine-dash line” no legal basis. The entire architecture of the Philippine foreign policy on the South China Seas is based on that single “rule-based order” coming straight from a unilaterally kangarooed arbitration.

If China’s sovereignty claims in the South China Seas is demolished, then Barack Obama’s Asian Pivot can materialize. The pivot of course pertains to bringing 60% of America’s war machine to the Asia-Pacific before China and the southeast Asian countries can put their act together and become the factory of the world and beat the US in the arms race.

But I am going ahead of the story. As far as the Americans are concerned, China has three Achilles heels, namely Hongkong, Taiwan and the South China Sea.

As early as 1992 with the passage of the U.S.–Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, the US foreign policy was that the U.S. would continue to treat Hong Kong apart from the People’s Republic of China even after the 1997 transfer of sovereignty marking the end of British rule. This will explain why up to 2019, the Central Intelligence Agency and Radio-Free Asia were engaged in covert and overt interference in the affairs of Hongkong transitioning onto an autonomous region under the People’s Republic of China.

Taiwan, of course has always been the bone of contention between China and the United States with the so-called “strategic ambiguity” the Americans have regarded the United Nation’s One-China Policy. As we speak, the evocation of vital security interests implies that for strategic reasons the United States opposes the reunification of Taiwan with China while at the same time does not support the independence of Taiwan. Recently, the US scheduled some $10 billion of military assistance in favor of Taipei.

American lawfare

Finally, this brings us to the South China Seas, considered as China’s soft-belly and the entry point of 475 invasions throughout its history. When the Philippines lost control of Scarborough Shoal in 2012, the Americans saw an opportunity to push the Philippines into a lawfare against China, by bringing the latter to a formal arbitration.

A condition must be created so that China’s effective control on the South China Seas can be challenged. The weapon of choice was UN Convention on the Laws of the Seas. The Philippines spent $7 million of its taxpayers’ money to hire Paul Reichler of the US firm Foley Hoag, a stable of American and British legal luminaries.

Two years before the Arbitral Tribunal released its decision, the US State Department published on December 5, 2014 a monograph in its Limits in the Seas series (no. 143) addressing China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea (SCS). According to Rappler, the US made it abundantly clear that China’s so-called nine dash line is contrary to international law, and cannot constitute the definition of China’s maritime entitlements in the SCS.

Further, the monograph asserted those entitlements are based exclusively on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which rejects the concept of “historic rights” in the high seas.

Award counterproductive

However, when the Arbitral Award came out in July 2016, it ruled in Paragraph 272, (that) “because the Tribunal considers the question of historic rights with respect to maritime areas to be entirely distinct from that of historic rights to land, the Tribunal considers it opportune to note that certain claims remain unaffected by this decision.

“In particular, the Tribunal emphasizes that nothing in this Award should be understood to comment in any way on China’s historic claim to the islands of the South China Sea. Nor does the Tribunal’s decision that a claim of historic rights to living and non-living resources is not compatible with the Convention limit China’s ability to claim maritime zones in accordance with the Convention, on the basis of such islands.”

What the ruling is saying is that the illegitimacy of the nine-dash-line is only according to UNCLOS which deals only with maritime rights. It is important to emphasize here that UNCLOS is just one treaty and does not embody the entirety of international law.

Second, the Award documented the non-participation of China (AA Paragraph 116), as such it cannot be binding on China, unless the tribunal justifies so by violating the international law on state consent.

Its Paragraph 637 is clear and follows the general principle that the legal effect of a judicial or arbitral decision is limited to the Parties and from Article 296(2) of the Convention, which expressly provides that “[a]ny such decision shall have no binding force except between the parties and in respect of that particular dispute.”

The problem here creating all the mental gymnastics is that the Philippines, even if left as the only party participating, has imposed upon itself to be bound by the Award, including everything in it that runs counter to the interest of the Philippines.

For instance, even if Scarbough Shoal is within 200 nautical miles from the Zambales baselines, the Philippines cannot freely exercise “exclusive” sovereign rights over it because the Tribunal has declared in Paragraph 805, “Scarborough Shoal has been a traditional fishing ground for fishermen of many nationalities, including the Philippines, China (including from Taiwan), and Viet Nam.”

China, albeit its historic sovereignty and actual possession of the shoal, allows “shared” economic rights to fishing by the nationalities mentioned. The Tribunal notes, however, “that traditional fishing rights are not absolute or impervious to regulation… (that) may be necessary for conservation and to restrict environmentally harmful practices.”

Which coastal state does Arbitral Paragraph 809 mandates this regulation? From the facts on the ground, it gives this responsibility to China which by customary international law has effective control of the area.

But our lawmakers are just plain lazy and entitled, they prefer to engage in mental gymnastics and remain uniformed.

To be continued. Next: Sleeper cells?

   

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