Reuters’ quote of Aquino was “We might be requesting overflights on that.”
The report said Aquino was referring to U.S. P3C Orion spy planes. “We don’t have aircraft with those capabilities,” Reuters further quoted Aquino.
The blunder was shocking enough. Imagine the chief executive of the land announcing a major national security plan that would cede Philippine sovereignty to the United States!
But the tragedy is that Aquino does not even know that he committed a blunder.
In a speech of Supreme Court Justice Antonio T. Carpio at the 50th anniversary celebration of Ateneo de Davao University last Oct. 29 on “The Rule of Law as the Great Equalizer’, he mentioned two instances when the Philippines could have done something but did not to strengthen the Philippine claim over the area that spans hundreds of thousands square kilometers including 53 islets.
Justice Carpio’s speech in full:
The first time was right after the Philippines became a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982 and the other one was before China opted out in 2006 from the compulsory dispute settlement mechanism of UNCLOS.
While the Chinese speakers – Zhang Liangfu, first secretary of the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs , and Chen Shiqiu , vice president of China UN Association and China Society of Human Rights Studies -skirted around the nine-dash-line map in asserting China’s claim over the South China Sea, parts of which are also being claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brune with Taiwan making the same over-encompassing claim as China, other speakers were forthright about their criticism about map submitted by China to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf on May 7, 2009.
One speaker during the no-attribution session said the nine dash line map “can’t be justified.”
There’s relative calm in the just recently turbulent waters of South China, which makes it the best time to explore ways to find lasting solutions to the area which is being claimed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, Philippines,Vietnam, and Taiwan.
On Oct. 17, the Carlos P. Romulo Foundation for Peace and Development chaired by former Foreign Secretary Roberto R. Romulo in collaboration with the Institute of South East Asian Studies, Singapore (ISEAS), will host a by- invitation- only forum at the Manila Polo Club in Makati City.
The CPR Foundation said there will be 23 notable former officials and authorities from academe speaking from ASEAN countries, China, Australia, India, Canada, the United States, and Europe. China has agreed to nominate three speakers for the event.
By Tessa Jamandre
VERA Files
On July 11, two unidentified aircraft were spotted in the airspace within the country’s 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, according to a spot report seen by VERA Files.
Filipino fishermen sighted the aircraft, a gray chopper and a green plane they said resembles a “Tora Tora” or a T-28 fighter plane, flying low at Boxall Reef located 163 nautical miles from the Philippine Navy’s naval station in Ulugan Bay or 97 nautical miles from the southernmost tip of mainland Palawan.
A group of fishermen saw the green plane at 9 a.m. and another group spotted the gray chopper at 10:40 a.m., heading in the same northern direction, the report said.
The Tora Tora-like plane was hovering in the area at an altitude of about 20 feet and the chopper at about 30 feet, it said.
Quoting the fishermen who reported the sighting of the chopper, the military said, “There were more or less five crew on board and wearing green uniform. The small markings on its undercarriage were unreadable.”
We are now experiencing “conference building,” he said.
But as Winston Churchill wisely said, “To jaw-jaw always is better than to war-war.”
The organizers of last week’s Manila Conference on the South China Sea deserve congratulations for a substantial program. They got excellent speakers. Even if many of the papers presented overlapped with each other, which cannot be avoided because they revolved around one subject, they all helped in the deepening of understanding of the issue that keeps on popping up on an otherwise stable region.
(I did this story for VERA Files. It was sent to all media outlets.)
Shen Hong-Fang, professor and senior research fellow at the Center of Southeast Asian studies at Xiamen University, spoke of “a new upsurge” of Chinese nationalism set off by claims made by some Asian countries, including the Philippines, over territory China considers its own.
“Some suggested that it is the right time to adopt necessary measures to teach some countries a lesson,” Shen said, startling participants at the two-day Conference on the South China Sea held in Manila last week.
She added there are those who think it justifiable “for China to launch a war against the invaders.”
The Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia have staked claims over some of the 160 islands that constitute the Spratlys in the South China Sea. These countries, along with Indonesia which is a non-claimant, have filed protests before the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) over the “nine-dash line map” China submitted to prove its claim.
I asked the question if the United States military would enter the picture in case of an armed conflict in the South China Sea in the light of the excitement of some Philippine officials and media over the statement of U.S. State Secretary Hillary and U.S. Ambassador Harry Thomas about continuing to work with the Philippines on all issues including related to the South China Sea conflict and stands by the Philippine “by our commitment under the Mutual Defense Treaty.”
This story is also posted in www.verafiles.org
By Tessa Jamandre
VERA Files
Amid renewed tensions in the disputed South China Sea, the Philippine military is batting to revive the concept of an anti-communist collective defense of Southeast Asia to enable the country to enter into a leasing arrangement of patrol boats with the United States.
An operational lease would allow the Philippine Navy to use newer U.S. ships, Navy Vice Commander Rear Admiral Orwen Cortez told a press conference following the opening ceremony of the PH-US Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) in Puerto Princesa on Tuesday.
“We have experience with this during the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) way back in the ‘50s when U.S. ships came to the Philippines, so that was the background and we’re trying to revive that concept,” he said.
The conference to be held on July 5 and 6 at the Dusit Hotel in Makati will have as its theme, “The South China Sea: Toward a Region of Peace, Cooperation, and Progress.”
The FSI is partnering with the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and the National Defense College of the Philippines in this conference that will bring in experts on the South China Sea.