Category: Foreign Affairs

Maritime Silk Road plan could ease South China Sea disputes

Published by Ellen on April 26, 2015

The following article is a reprint from Want China Times

This part is interesting (6th paragraph): ” After a new president takes office in June 2016, the Philippines is expected to postpone the arbitration and step up bilateral or multi-lateral contacts with China.”

Staff Reporter 2015-04-26 09:23 (GMT+8)

The relationship between the construction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and the territorial disputes in the South China Sea is drawing increasing public concern along with the implementation of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. Observers wonder whether the disputes will produce a turning point for settling the disputes or whether the South China Sea will become the most likely area for potential conflict between China and the US. To answer the question, one should first dig out the exact crux of the disputes and then grasp the latest developments of related parties involved, particularly changes in China’s South China Sea strategies, according to South Winds, a bi-weekly magazine published in Guangzhou.

PH, Vietnam to hold naval drills, scientific research in South China Sea

Published by Ellen on April 24, 2015

By Tessa Jamandre and Ellen Tordesillas
VERA Files

President Aquino and Vietnam President Truong Tan Sang met during the 2014 APEC Leaders’ Meeting in Beijing, China . (Malacañang Photo Bureau)

The Philippines and Vietnam have agreed to conduct joint naval drills and scientific studies amid concerns over China’s intensified reclamations in the South China Sea.

The planned activities are part of the soon-to-be signed “Joint Statement on the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership between the Republic of the Philippines and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” a copy of which was obtained by VERA Files.

In the strategic partnership agreement, which is considered a final draft until it is signed, the Philippines and Vietnam “reaffirm their commitment to resolve territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means, as well as to the freedom of navigation in and over flight above the SCS (South China Sea) all in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).”

Del Rosario’s wishful thinking

Published by Ellen on April 19, 2015

Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario sounded very pleased that the United States is preparing for an armed confrontation with China in the South China Sea without any concern of its constitutional complications for the Philippines.

In an interview with ANC, del Rosario once again held on to a pronouncement by an American official, this time Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who said the United States and many other countries “are deeply concerned about some of the activities China is undertaking.”

He must be referring to the intensified reclamations of China on reefs and islets that they occupy in the disputed South China Sea. They have not overtaken any island or reefs occupied by other claimants that include the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. But the reclamations and constructions are massive that the United States has described it as “Great Wall of Sand.”

Centerlaw: Documents belie De Lima’s claim of misinformation

Published by Ellen on April 8, 2015

Statement of the Prof. Harry L. Roque Jr., chair of the Center for International Law (Centerlaw), an NGO dedicated to the promotion of binding international legal norms in the Philippines and Asia:

“We take exception to the veiled threat in the statement made yesterday by Secretary Leila De Lima that the Vera Files special report on a recent Note Verbale given by the Philippines to Malaysia over the Spratlys islands concerned a confidential matter that should have been kept as it is.

“In the first place, our Justice Secretary should be first to know that such a threat is in the nature of prior restraint with a chilling effect on speech, as held by the Supreme Court in the case filed by the late former Solicitor General Francisco Chavez against a predecessor of hers at the DOJ, the late Raul Gonzales.

“A mere press statement of a threat of prosecution coming from a government functionary, according to this 2008 Supreme Court decision, is unconstitutional precisely for that reason.

De Lima will not see what she doesn’t want to see

Published by Ellen on April 7, 2015

Now that the Department of Foreign Affairs’ willingness to downgrade the country’s claim to Sabah to strengthen its case against China before the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal has been exposed, it is resorting to the classic diversionary tactic- questioning the journalists’ motives in writing the report.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima now comes to the aid of the DFA.

De Lima has been quoted in several reports as having said that VERA Files’ March 30 story “PH offers Sabah to win Malaysia’s support for UN case vs China” is a “misinterpretation.”

DFA is misleading public in Sabah for Spratlys issue

Published by Ellen on March 31, 2015

Disclosure: I am one of the trustees and writers of VERA Files, a group of veteran journalist who put out articles that take a deeper look at current issues.

Last Monday, VERA Files released a story, “PH offers Sabah to win Malaysia’s support for UN case vs China.”
The article said, “ The quid pro quo was contained in a note verbale the Department of Foreign Affairs handed to a representative of the Malaysian Embassy last week, a week after the visit of Malaysian Defense Minister Dato Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

“The note verbale, a copy of which was obtained by VERA Files, referred to the May 6, 2009 joint submission by Malaysia and Vietnam to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in which Malaysia claimed an extended continental shelf (350 nautical miles from baseline) that was clearly projected from Sabah.

China’s latest expansion to deny PH access to Ayungin shoal

Published by Ellen on March 15, 2015

By Tessa Jamandre, Vera Files

China has created new artificial islets in two more reefs in the disputed South China Sea, which the Philippine military fears is meant to choke off its access to Ayungin shoal, where a crumbling Philippine Navy ship is beached.

Rep. Ashley Acedillo of the Magdalo Partylist

In an interview, former Air Force officer Rep. Francisco Acedillo, now partylist representative of the Magdalo party, shared the latest maritime surveillance photos showing how China’s land reclamation is expanding to cover all the seven reefs it occupies.

The latest reclamation work is being done on Mischief and Subi reefs, known to the Philippines as Panganiban and Zamora, which are fast catching up with the five other reefs where China had done reclamation work early last year.

Acedillo branded this move as “ graver danger to the country’s national security.”

The photos, taken at an altitude of 5,000 feet, show multi-storey buildings, deep harbors, and airstrips being constructed. Also sighted were cargo and supply vessels steadily hauling construction materials in reclaimed lands.

“I warn my colleagues in Congress and the Filipino people of an impending danger to our national security and it’s right at our doorstep, less than 50-kilometers away from our Ayungin Shoal and roughly 400-km away from Palawan,” Acedillo said.

The Lantern festival crowd: showcase of Taiwanese’s admirable discipline

Published by Ellen on March 11, 2015

In the 30 or so minutes that I was in the midst of the teeming crowd in Wuri Railway Station in Taichung, Taiwan last Saturday, I gained insights about the Taiwanese and in way, in their relations with mainland China, more than what I have learned in my readings in the past.

Thousands and thousands of people of all ages – babies, children, elderly, even the handicapped, filled every inch of the train station. Organizers said there were 1.5 million visitors that night, a record attendance.

As I flowed with the crowd, I thought of the stampede in Shanghai last New year’s eve where 36 people died and for some fleeting moments, it was scary.

Wuri Railway Station in Taichung, at about 9 p.m. of Saturday, March 7, 2015. Part of the 1.5 million who came to visit the Lantern Festival.

But the amazing thing was,the crowd was moving orderly. There was no pushing or elbowing out each other. It was discipline at its most awesome.

Values that tie PH and Iran

Published by Ellen on February 12, 2015

US-centric Filipinos may not be aware that the Philippines and Iran share a lot of common experiences-from rising from devastating natural calamities to political upheavals.

Left photo:The 1979 Iranian revolution. Right: The 1986 Philippine People Power revolution

Foremost is the harnessing of people power against an extravagant and tyrannical regimes.

Many Filipinos like to think that we “invented” People Power with the ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos on Feb. 25, 1986 and inspired other countries in Eastern Europe, and much later Arab countries, to go out in the streets and overthrow tyrants.

But the Iranians did it seven years earlier than the EDSA People Power. On Feb. 11,1979 angry Iranians, mostly students, drove out the United States- supported Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

Justice Carpio explains Itu Aba issue in the PH suit vs China

Published by Ellen on February 8, 2015

Last year, Itu Aba (also known as Taiping or Ligaw), the biggest feature in the Spratly group of islands being disputed by the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, figured in a controversy involving the appointment of the Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice Lourdes Sereno opposed the appointment of Jardeleza to the High Court accusing him of treason when he omitted Itu Aba in the Memorial or memorandum filed before the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal in connection with the case filed by the Philippine questioning the legality of China’s nine-dashed line map which overreaches into the territory of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

Itu Aba is occupied by Taiwan, once part of China but now considers itself a sovereign state as Republic of China. The Philippines adopts a One-China policy which considers Taiwan a province of China.