It’s Manila that should put up monitor station

Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal is Philippine territory. No record or map backs up Beijing’s “historical claim” over the 15,000-hectare seamark 450 miles distant from Hainan. Old Japanese and British navigation logs and charts attribute the shoal to the Philippines, only 120 miles off. Spanish colonial files refer to Panatag, as with far-flung Philippine islands, as “Punto de Mandato” (Command), ie., jurisdiction. Historical proofs are extant, extensively researched by international maritime law expert Dr. Jay Batongbacal:

The Murillo Velarde map of 1734 draws the shoal as part of Luzon. The 1748 shipwreck there of Britain’s HMS Scarborough, officially reported to Spanish authorities in Manila, led to its detailed cartography. The Malaspina Expedition of 1792 located the shoal 57 leagues from land. In 1800 Admiral Alava dispatched from Cavite the steamer Sta. Lucia, under Capitan Francisco Riquelme, to survey the shoal and thereafter regularly patrol it. The summary of Riquelme’s findings became a fixture of the Doroteo del Archipelago Filipino, the Spanish guide for mariners. The description of the shoal in the 1879 edition of the Doroteo jibes with an 1866 British survey by the sloop HMS Swallow. All that time Filipinos were fishing in the shoal they called Bajo de Masinloc.

Spain ceded the main Philippine islands to the United States via the 1898 Treaty of Paris, and Panatag and outlying islands via the 1900 Treaty of Washington. The US took over jurisdiction of the shoal, including vessels in distress. When Sweden’s SS Nippon was shipwrecked there in 1913, the rescuers and salvors came from Manila. The scientific study on the salt water’s effect on the copra cargo, and the insurance litigation also were held in the capital. The Philippine Supreme Court affirmed the insurance ruling in 1916. The American colonial administration listed the shoal in the 1918 Census of Philippine Islands. In 1937 Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon formally inquired about the status of the shoal, which he wanted the newly formed Coast Guard to patrol. The US Departments of State, Defense, and War, and Office Geodetic Survey ascertained that no other land had contradictory territorial claim.

Throughout the 1960s-1980s the independent Philippines exercised authority over Panatag. Every time the Philippine and US Navies held exercises like bombing runs there, Manila issued Alerts to Mariners safely to steer clear. Passing ships recognized Manila’s power. When smugglers hid out in the shoal, the Philippine Constabulary drove them away. Panatag is part of the definition of Philippine territory in the 1936, 1972, and 1987 Constitutions. It is specified in the 2009 Archipelagic Baselines Law (Republic Act 9522).

In July 2016 the United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration rubbished Beijing’s “nine-dash” boundary encompassing the entire South China (West Philippine) Sea. It also illegalized China’s occupation of Panatag in 2012. The ruling has five key points:

• China has no legal basis for “historic rights” under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea;

• Panganiban (Mischief) Reef, Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal, and Recto (Reed) Bank farther off Palawan are within the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone under UNCLOS; more so Panatag closer to Luzon; all are outside China’s own EEZ;

• Panatag is a traditional fishing ground of various nations; no one may prevent others from fishing there; China broke international law by driving away Filipino fishermen starting 2012;

• China violated Philippine sovereign rights by making artificial islands out of seven reefs within the latter’s EEZ, interfering with Filipino fishing and oil exploration, and allowing Chinese poaching;

• China aggravated the dispute with its island reclamations, and irreparably damaged the marine environment.

This week China's foreign ministry disavowed plans to put up an environment monitoring station in Panatag. That was after the highest communist official in Sansha, the Hainan municipality that administers Beijing’s “nine-dash line,” announced such completion by 2017, in the state-run Hainan Daily.

It is in fact Manila that should station environment monitors at Panatag. The shoal is historically Philippine jurisdiction; it is the Philippines’ environmental responsibility under UNCLOS; its fisheries should be protected by Manila to share with other nations under the PCA ruling. The Philippine Coast Guard and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources should patrol the shoal against destructive fishing by any national. Hainanese fishermen should be stopped once and for all from harvesting endangered sea turtles, giant clams, and fan corals. Satellite photos show that, in 2013-2015 under Beijing military control, Hainanese trawlers have ruined two-thirds of Panatag's lagoon. Destructive fishing was why the Philippine Navy had accosted the Chinese in the first place in the summer of 2012.

*      *      *

Historical footnote: Sen. Antonio Trillanes, in China at that time, volunteered to backchannel for President Noynoy Aquino. The junior senator claimed expertise in China relations and Panatag as an ex-Navy lieutenant. Badmouthing Foreign Sec. Albert del Rosario and Amb. Sonia Brady, he “negotiated” a simultaneous pullout of Chinese and Philippine gunboats. The lone Philippine vessel dutifully departed; six Chinese vessels only sailed around while three stayed inside to rope off the lagoon’s mouth. China has since held Panatag.

Trillanes now accuses President Rodrigo Duterte of “treason” in befriending China while biding time to assert Manila’s arbitral victory.

*      *      *

Info-technologists and telecoms executives would be interested to know that the Dept. of Information and Communications Technology has a "Working Draft: National Broadband Plan." Today is the deadline to post comments, so they might wish to seek extension. Check out this link: http://www.dict.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Draft-National-Broadband-Plan-for-commnets-until-5PM_24March2017.pdf. Thanks to reader Lloyd Intalan for the heads-up.

*      *      *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

Gotcha archives on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarius-Bondoc/1376602159218459, or The STAR website http://www.philstar.com/author/Jarius%20Bondoc/GOTCHA