Category: South China Sea

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.

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.

Vietnam supports PH position: UN tribunal has jurisdiction on South China Sea dispute

Published by Ellen on December 13, 2014

Water cannon fight in Paracels between China and Vietnam last May.

By Ellen T. Tordesillas, VERA Files

The Philippine case against China’s nine-dash line before the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal gained support from Vietnam in a statement it submitted to the court in The Hague on Thursday.

The Vietnam Foreign Ministry said the tribunal has jurisdiction to settle disputes concerning the interpretation of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Justice Carpio: China’s 9-dashed line- grand theft of Global Commons

Published by Ellen on September 7, 2014

China’s 9-dashed line map, which was recently expanded to 10 dashes, goes against the “concept of global commons” which was the foundation of the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said in a speech delivered on the 75th Anniversary of the College of Law of the University of San Agustin in Iloilo City last Aug. 30.

Thus,Carpio said, China fisheries laws particularly giving Hainan, China southernmost province, exclusive jurisdiction over the waters in the South China Sea as well as on the fishery resources of Macclesfield Bank is “a grand theft of the global commons in the South China Sea.”

Hainan claims to administer all the waters enclosed by the dashes from 1 to the heavy red line intersecting the dashes between 8 and 9. The enclosed waters comprise two million square kilometers. China claims a total of three million square kilometers of maritime space, and all the resources found there, out of the 3.5 million square kilometers of maritime space in the South China Sea.

Magdalo Rep scores neglect of PH-occupied territories in Spratlys

Published by Ellen on August 28, 2014

In the power point presentation Rep. Ashley Acedillo of the Magdalo Party showed last Wednesday, he compared the massive fortification and expansion of the Chinese of their occupied reefs in the disputed Spratlys area in the South China with the miserable state of the islands and reefs occupied by the Philippines.

Acedillo, in a privilege speech titled “Our country is in grave danger,”questioned what seems to be a government policy of benign neglect in our occupied territories in Spratlys.

“With an Air Force that can’t protect our air space and a Navy that can’t protect our maritime interest, claimant countries have accelerated their creeping occupation of our islands,” said Acedillo, formerly an Air Force Officer who was detained for seven years for rebelling against Gloria Arroyo in what was known as “The Oakwood Mutiny.”

Del Rosario engages in disinformation re coverage of MDT

Published by Ellen on May 1, 2014

Del Rosario: desperately clinging to Uncle Sam.

The day after U.S. President Barack Obama left Manila, Foreign Secretary Albert Del Rosario issued the following statement:

“Under the Mutual Defense Treaty, the United States will come to the assistance of the Philippines if our metropolitan territory is attacked or if our Armed Forces are attacked in the Pacific area.

“In 1999, in a diplomatic letter, the United States affirmed that the South China Sea is considered as part of the Pacific area.”

Del Rosario is pathetic. What is abhorrent about this is, he is resorting to disinformation. Either that or his geography is faulty: The Spratlys, the contested islands in the South China Sea, are not in the Pacific.

Obama shatters delusions of many Filipinos

Published by Ellen on April 29, 2014

U.S. President Barack Obama’s candid answers to the two questions from Filipinos reporters whether the United States will come to the defense of the Philippines in case of an armed conflict with China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea disappointed a lot of Filipinos who expected him to say that the American soldiers who will be coming under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement will be side-by-side Filipinos in blocking China’s expansion in South China Sea.

Obama didn’t say that in his joint presscon with President Aquino in Malacañang Monday. Instead he reminded the public that the United States and China have a “constructive relationship.”

“ There is enormous trade; enormous business that is done between the United States and China; a whole range of issues on the international stage in which cooperation between the US and China are balanced,” he said.

He said: “ So our goal is not to counter China.Our goal is not to contain China” but “ to make sure that international rules and norms are respected, and that includes in the area of maritime disputes.”

Will China withdraw from UNCLOS if UN court decides in favor of PH?

Published by Ellen on December 10, 2013

The possibility of China pulling out of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has been mentioned in informal discussions among foreign affairs experts and observers but it was the first time that a Chinese scholar said it in public.

Shen Dingli, speaking to reporters after his speech in a forum “What is to be done?: Resolving Maritime Disputes in Southeast Asia” organized by the Angara Centre for Law and Economics at Marriott Hotel last Thursday, said it was a mistake for China to have joined the 1982 UNCLOS, “an international treaty that provides a regulatory framework for the use of the world’s seas and oceans to ensure the conservation and equitable usage of resources and the marine environment and to ensure the protection and preservation of the living resources of the sea.”

UNCLOS also addresses such other matters as sovereignty, rights of usage in maritime zones, and navigational rights, the UN website states.

“We should not have joined UNCLOS,” Shen said.

PH, China in battle of photos on Scarborough shoal

Published by Ellen on September 22, 2013

By Ellen Tordesillas, VERA Files

Concrete blocks or just rocks and corals?

Chinese photos taken second week of Sept. 2013

That is the latest question troubling the strained relationship between the Philippines and China over the disputed Bajo de Masinloc, also known as Scarborough Shoal, off the South China Sea. This time, though, the dispute is playing out through photographs, more than words.

A week after the Armed Forces of the Philippines came out with photographs showing concrete blocks in Bajo de Masinloc, China released photos that showed only rocks and corals.

The photos sent by China to Philippine officials were said to have been taken second week of September to support the statement issued by China’s Foreign Ministry that the Philippine claim was “fabricated.”

A guide to understanding the West Philippine Sea dispute

Published by Ellen on July 7, 2013

The Asian Center of the University of the Philippines has come out with a very useful document: The West Philippine Sea: Territorial and Maritime Jurisdiction Disputes from a Filipino Perspective.

It’s available online: http://www.babaylan.dk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/UP_Primer-on-the-West-Philippine-Sea_April-2013_0.pdf

Prepared under the direction of experts on the subject (Dean Eduardo T. Gonzalez of the Asian Center; Aileen S. P. Baviera, professor, Asian Center; and Jay Batongbacal, director, Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea of the UP College of Law), the timing of the primer is perfect as tension in the area continues to simmer.

The authors have succeeded in simplying the complicated topic. It covers history of the conflict and recent events. Bajo de Masinloc, also known as Panatag shoal and by its international name Scarborough Shoal (Chinese name is Huangyan island) which has been the area of conflict since the standoff April last year involving Chinese and the Philippine ships, is well covered.