Skip to content

Category: South China Sea

China’s flag raising

Published by Ellen on August 29, 2010

While China was protesting the draping of the Philippine flag on the coffin Senior Police Inspector Rolando Mendoza, who hostaged a bus-full of tourists from Hongkong last Monday at the Rizal Park which resulted in the death of eight of the visitors, it was also doing its own flag- raising operation.

Foreign news agencies reported last Friday that China “had used a small, manned submarine to plant the national flag deep beneath the South China Sea, where Beijing has tussled with Washington and Southeast Asian nations over territorial disputes.”

What is the Philippines going to do now, being one of the countries that claim some parts of the South China Sea?

Continue readingChina’s flag raising

No sovereignty in own territory

Published by Ellen on June 16, 2009

The four-month old Philippine baseline law got its first test last Friday and it failed miserably and embarrassingly.

Last Friday, CNN reported a Chinese submarine collided with an underwater sonar array towed by the destroyer USS John S. McCain off the Philippines.

Other wire reports from Washington D.C. described the location as “off Subic Bay” in Zambales. Chinese media said the encounter was near Scarborough Shoal.

Continue readingNo sovereignty in own territory

Chinese sub slams US destroyer’s sonar near Scarborough shoal

Published by Ellen on June 13, 2009

From Inquirer online:

WASHINGTON (Agence France Presse)– A Chinese submarine collided with an underwater sonar array towed by the destroyer USS John S. McCain off the coast of the Philippines, CNN television said, quoting a US official who said it was an “inadvertent encounter.”

The array, used to locate underwater sounds, was damaged in the incident, but the military official said the sub and ship did not collide.

The US Navy did not consider the event a case of deliberate harassment, CNN reported.

Continue readingChinese sub slams US destroyer’s sonar near Scarborough shoal

Hindi makiki-alam ang US sa Spratlys

Published by Ellen on June 1, 2009

Mabuti naman at sinabi ni US Defense Secretary Robert Gates Jr. na walang posisyon ang Amerika sa problema sa Spratlys kasi akala kasi ng maraming Pilipino na kapag magkagulo sa Spratlys laban sa China, kakampihan tayo ng mga Amerikano.

Wala tayong maasahan sa mga Kano, yan ang katotohanan.

Ito ang sinabi ni Gates sa press conference kahapon sa Camp Aguinaldo pagkatapos ng pag-uusap niya kay Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro: “There are a number of security challenges and obviously concerns on conflicting claims in the South China Sea, the United States takes no position on those claims, we only urge all of the parties involved to try and resolve these issues clearly, peacefully.”

Tinanong din si Gates tungkol sa Visiting Forces Agreement na binabatikos ng mga progresibong organisasyon at sabi niya comportable daw sila sa VFA. Dapat lang dahil nagagamit nila sa proteksyun ng kanilang mga sundalo kahit na binabastos na ang batas ng Pilipinas na pinapayagan naman ang ating mga opisyal.

Continue readingHindi makiki-alam ang US sa Spratlys

Upon Arroyo’s orders

Published by Ellen on April 24, 2008

There are two items in the April 23, 2008 letter of Sen. Miriam Santiago, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,to House Speaker Prospero Nograles unsettling.

The first one is her saying that she was shelving Senate Bill 1467 and House Bill 1202 defining the country’s archipelagic baselines “”Pursuant to President Arroyo’s directive.” The other one is her furnishing a copy of her letter the Chinese Ambassador Song Tao.

Santiago is known as “an administration senator”. It’s not surprising for her to toe the administration line. But she is a member of the Legislative Department, co-equal with the Executive and Judicial branches of government. Senators are not supposed to get orders from the executive department, even from the president.

Continue readingUpon Arroyo’s orders

UNCLOS’ regime of islands

Published by Ellen on March 25, 2008

In the beginning, the bills delineating the country’s archipelagic baselines, filed in the House of Representatives by Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco and in the Senate by detained Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV were the same.

Both bills included the Scarborough Shoal in the vicinity of Zambales as part of the baseline and the Kalayaan Island Group in the Spratlys as “regime of islands.” While Cuenco’s bill has evolved into something else and has passed second reading, Trillanes’ bill has remained unacted on.

Continue readingUNCLOS’ regime of islands

Arroyo neglect, government infighting jeopardize RP’s territorial claim

Published by Ellen on March 23, 2008

By VERA Files*

(First of two parts)
map1_rpterritory.JPG map4_projectedregimes.JPG

Neglect by President Arroyo and squabbles over turf and money have derailed government efforts to establish the country’s new archipelagic baseline, and may jeopardize the Philippines’ claim over resource-rich Spratlys that fall within its extended continental shelf.

Continue readingArroyo neglect, government infighting jeopardize RP’s territorial claim