Can our Navy back tough words with real action?

The navy of any country is duty-bound to protect the interests of that country at sea and from the sea. Those with air capabilities will do so from the air and in the air. Such a mission goes without saying. When Philippine Navy chief Vice Admiral Giovanni Carlo Bacordo said as much following the Philippine decision to resume the stalled prospecting for oil and natural gas in the hotly-contested South China Sea, I can only say uh-oh to myself.

We have been in this situation before when, in plain hubris, we inserted naval assets into a purely civilian situation. Illegal fishing, being civilian in nature, requires only police action. For years, our Coast Guard and Maritime Police have been arresting foreign poachers in our waters without really triggering an international incident. The same with our nationals caught in foreign waters.

 But in 2012, bristling with pride at the acquisition of a former mothballed US Coast Guard cutter, which Philippine officialdom quickly branded and brandished as a "warship" and an obliging media enthusiastically parroting the misrepresentation without fact-checking, the Navy overstepped both bounds and logic and sent the "gray ship" BRP Gregorio del Pilar to interdict eight Chinese fishing vessels.

 Nobody really knows why the Philippines decided to suddenly militarize what had heretofore been largely a civilian conflict of overlapping claims in the South China Sea. This civilian nature of the conflict, largely confined to political and diplomatic boundaries among several claimant countries was what had been keeping China up to that point from flexing its military might.

 But by using a gray ship (navy) instead of white (coast guard or police) the Philippines did what was the equivalent of firing the first shot. It was the excuse China had long been waiting for the other claimants to wittingly or unwittingly provide. Within a minute, Chinese warships ganged up on the Gregorio del Pilar. Only the timely intervention of the US prevented our "warship" from getting blasted out of the water.

 In a US-brokered deescalation deal, both sides would withdraw to where they were before the incident. Always the naive sucker, the Philippines complied and withdrew. China thrust its jaws and did not. Instead it moved in on Scarborough Shoal and other areas and promptly built them up as bases, complete with fortifications.

And now, apparently not learning any lessons, our Navy is once more telegraphing its punches. Again, it is the job of the Navy to protect a nation's interests. But did the Navy chief have to shout it to the whole world? Doesn't he know that China is just beyond the reef listening? The navy chiefs of the rest of the world must be snorting and flinging their thumbs in the direction of their Philippine counterpart, saying WAJ!

 All the Navy chiefs in the world, including that of China, know and expect the Philippine Navy to come to the aid of exploration and survey ships that might start prospecting for oil and natural gas. They expect no less. But Bacordo did not have to throw down the gauntlet. China already stopped a similar survey and exploration years before. It will do so again. The problem is Bacordo already promised to fight. Will he?