By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

With the aim of testing reconnaissance, early warning, rapid deployments and joint strike capabilities, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command organized on August 7, 2024 a joint combat patrol in waters and airspace near Huangyan Dao in the South China Sea.

China has been in effective control of Huangyan Dao or Scarborough Shoal since the Philippines abandoned it after the 2012 Scarborough standoff.

President Benigno Aquino III ordered the withdrawal of a Philippine Coast Guard patrol vessel and a Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) survey ship on June 15, 2012 ending the standoff after two months and one week, leaving China in control of Scarborough Shoal.

As such one does need an IQ of over 80, and knowledge of customary international law, to know that China exercises sovereignty over the area and its adjacent waters. Naturally, the PLA’s patrol in the South China Sea is a rightful way to assert China’s red line policy.

That notwithstanding, military exercises around Chinese territory, especially when conducted with non-regional actors are a serious provocation. China’s response is a clear display of its resolute safeguarding of its maritime rights and sovereignty.

Scarbough Shoal is beyond our country’s 12 nautical miles of territorial sea. Arguably, it is located 9 miles outside the treaty limits the Philippines inherited from the US by virtue of its independence. While the shoal is within 200 nautical miles from the Zambales baselines, the Philippine claim that it has jurisdiction over the area is absurd, because exclusive economic zones and the sovereign right that accompanies it, cannot overlap another state’s sovereignty.

In practice however, China allows traditional fishing by fishermen of many nationalities, including Filipinos and Vietnamese.

Nevertheless, China reminds the nationalities, especially the Philippines of the limitations imposed on our fishermen under Paragraph 805 of an arbitral award, that “traditional fishing rights are not absolute or impervious to regulation.”

That arbitral award further clarifies: “xxx Customary international law, in this respect, does not restrict the coastal State from reasonable regulation xxx. Nor would it prevent the coastal State from assessing the scope of traditional fishing to determine, in good faith, the threshold of scale and technological development beyond which it would no longer accept that fishing by foreign nationals is traditional in nature.”

By virtue of its occupation, that coastal state that reserves the right and power to regulate fishing practices in the area, is China.

Philippine protest

AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said that about 9 am of August 8, two Chinese multirole combat jets made a “dangerous” move against a Philippine Air Force (PAF) plane, firing flares into its path as it was flying over Scarborough Shoal endangering “the lives of our personnel undertaking maritime security operations” on a twin-prop NC-212i plane.

Brawner further asserted “The incident posed a threat to Philippine Air Force aircraft and its crew, interfered with lawful flight operations in airspace within Philippine sovereignty and jurisdiction, and contravened international law and regulations governing safety of aviation.”

 On August 12, thePhilippine Department of Foreign Affairs filed a diplomatic protest over the reported harassment of a PAF patrol aircraft.

What a mouthful! We are again stonewalling an error.

In the first place what is Philippine military aircraft doing over a Chinese territory and who is behind this illegal order? A military overflight without the consent of the concerned sovereign state is not lawful.

The reason Brawner is confused about this matter is that he is ignorant of international law and has chosen politics and propaganda over reason. I challenge him to show me what special international law did the Chinese contravened. I challenge him to show me proof that Scarborough is under our sovereignty. I challenge him to show an official map that the shoal is ours. And definitely not the Murillo Velarde map of 1734 but one that is approved by the United Nations and registered with the International Hydrographic Organization.

The naked fact that China drove our aircraft away from the territory proves that Philippine jurisdiction there is fictitious and a lot of hot air.

In a press conference on August 13, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian said “On August 7 and 8, Philippine military aircraft twice intruded into the adjacent airspace of Huangyan Dao, which gravely infringed upon China’s sovereignty and violated international law and the basic norms governing international relations.

“The Chinese military took necessary and lawful measures in response, and their maneuvers at the scene were professional and consistent with Chinese laws and international law.”

Considering that it sent the military aircraft to Huangyan Dao’s airspace during the joint patrol with the US, Australia and Canada in the South China Sea, what the Philippines did was clearly a deliberate provocation,” he added.

Not only was it a provocation, its was a violation of the presidential orders of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to de-escalate tensions in the South China Seas. This is the second time Brawner has violated Marcos foreign policy.

Brawner authorized sent military personnel instead of leaving the mission to the Philippine Coast Guard for rotational resupply (RORE) last June 17 to Ayungin Shoal, disregarding Chinese protocol. The incident led to an injury of a serviceman and the disarming of our military contingent after the Chinese coast guard blocked the mission and boarded the Philippine Navy boats.

The incident pushed the convening of the 9^th bilateral consultative meeting and the return of the Philippines to observing protocols that date back to President Joseph Estrada enabling the peaceful delivery of humanitarian necessities for the Philippine marines stationed at the derelict BRP Sierra Madre marooned at Ayungin.

Flares

According to US Federal Aviation Administration national safety and interception procedures, the Chinese fighter jets complied with lawful intercept protocol.

As standard procedure, first the intercepted aircraft were approached from behind. assuming safe separation between interceptors and intercepted.

Second, the Chinese aircrafts initiated a controlled closure toward the aircraft of interest, holding at a distance no closer than deemed necessary to establish positive identification and to gather the necessary information.

Third. the interceptor also flew past the intercepted aircraft while gathering data at a distance considered safe based on aircraft performance characteristics and established communications via standard International Civil Aviation Organization signals.  

Fourth, only when the intercepted aircraft remained non-compliant to instruction, that the interceptor pilot initiated a divert maneuver.

Fifth, in this maneuver, the interceptor flew across the intercepted aircraft’s flight path (minimum 500 feet separation and commencing from slightly below the intercepted aircraft altitude) in the general direction the intercepted aircraft is expected to turn rocking its wings while crossing the intercepted aircraft’s flight path and rolling out in the direction the intercepted aircraft is expected to turn before returning to verify the aircraft of interest is complying.

 Sixth, since the intercepted aircraft still refused to execute an immediate turn to the direction of the intercepting aircraft, the interceptor conducted a second climbing turn across the intercepted aircraft’s flight path (minimum 500 feet separation and commencing from slightly below the intercepted aircraft altitude) while sending flares as a warning signal to the intercepted aircraft to comply immediately, turn in the direction indicated and leave the area.

The intercepted aircraft, in this case the PAF twin-prop NC-212i plane, finally complied and turned to the directed path, out of harm’s way. Refer to the photo taken from the PAF cockpit showing the flares and the position of the aircrafts.

Proof that Chinese interceptor maintained lawful, responsible and safe maneuvers, is that the Philippine military plane was not shot down, and its personnel returned home safely.

Implications

Brawner’s recent, yet another faux pas, has grave implications.

If his politicking and deliberate provocations by our armed forces do not stop, what I am afraid of is another forever loss of sea claims which we can share with China.

We lost occupation of Pugad Island to the Vietnamese in 1975 and its adjacent waters. In the passage of Republic Act 9522 last 2009, we stand losing 830,140 square kilometers of treaty limits acquired through historic rights by succession to the United States that acquired them.

We also lost Scarborough Shoal to China in 2012. We lost about 70,000 square kilometers of claim to the Kalayaan Island Group because Paragraph 574 of the 2016 Arbitral Award ruled “…even the Philippines could not declare archipelagic baselines surrounding the Spratly Islands” as per limitations imposed by Article 47 of UN Convention of the Law of the Sea.

I do not think, however, that China is in a rush to impose serious economic sanctions on the Philippines because they could have done that a long time ago.

What I anticipate is the imposition by China of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over Scarborough Shoal.

This could lead to the Chinese completing its plans for a mixed tourism and military buildup on the rock inviting the future deployment of Chinese warships close to where U.S. naval forces will be stationed in the future.

According to Washington Free Bacon, details of the militarization plan for Huangyan Island were obtained by U.S. intelligence agencies, including a runway, power systems, residences, and harbor capable of supporting Chinese navy warships. An image appeared on a Chinese military enthusiast website on March 2016.

As this waits to unfold, another provocation is going on Xianbin Reef, for a Philippine forwarding base, but that discussion is for another day.

President Marcos must act fast to regain his presidential powers, by replacing the AFP chief of staff and the secretary of national defense who, it has now becomes obvious, exercises more suasion and loyalty over Brawner.

   

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