Passing through a sea is different from staying there for three days. And when it is a military vessel that enters the sea without permission from the country that clearly has jurisdiction over the area, it should be considered an intrusion.
This is what the Department of Foreign Affairs has conveyed to Beijing, in the case of a Chinese naval vessel that entered the Sulu Sea on Jan. 29 this year and remained there until Feb. 1, despite being repeatedly told by the Philippine Navy ship BRP Antonio Luna to leave the area.
The Sulu Sea lies between Palawan and the southwestern tip of Mindanao, including the Zamboanga peninsula, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. Within the waters lies the Tubattaha Reef National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is a marine and bird sanctuary. Its rich biodiversity deserves utmost protection against notorious poachers of threatened and endangered species such as marine turtles, giant clams and seahorses.
Yet China sees nothing wrong with the equivalent of maritime breaking and entering into Philippine waters. Reacting to the DFA protest, Beijing gave a typical dismissive reaction: it said it was simply exercising “the right of innocent passage,” pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. You wonder where that passage was supposed to lead, since that was deep into Philippine territorial waters.
It’s funny that Beijing is invoking UNCLOS, when an international arbitration court cited the same law in invalidating its loopy nine-dash-line claim over nearly the entire South China Sea. Beijing has refused to abide by the ruling.
The Chinese intrusion in Sulu Sea as well as in the Philippine Rise along the eastern seaboard, a long way from the South China Sea, shows the dismal failure of six years of capitulation to Beijing by the current administration. China has refused to budge from Panganiban or Mischief Reef, which it has turned into a military garrison, despite a specific ruling of the arbitral court granting the Philippines sovereign rights over the reef. Massive Chinese fleets of military-backed fishing boats routinely enter the West Philippine Sea, driving away Filipino fishermen and taking away marine resources as they please.
Little wonder that Beijing simply brushed aside the DFA protest. There is no hope that this sorry situation will change within the Duterte administration. The next one will have to do more to assert Philippine sovereignty.