Hold the line at WPS

We could only wish the best for President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) when he embarks on a very important mission. Off to his yet another obligatory foreign travel, PBBM flies today to Jakarta to join the 43rd Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) Leaders’ Summit. With Indonesia as host of this year’s Leaders’ Summit on Sept. 5 to 7, PBBM will also hold other meetings with his counterpart heads of government of ASEAN and its seven dialogue partners, namely, China, South Korea, Japan, United States (US), Canada, India, and Australia.

The annual ASEAN Leaders’ Summit takes place at a time Beijing literally pushed farther its nine-dash claims around the disputed maritime boundaries in South China Sea (SCS). On Aug. 28, the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources released its controversial 2023 version of China’s Standard Map. The new map showed certain border areas of China’s neighbor India and Taiwan are inside the imaginary 10-dash-line maritime territories Beijing claims in South China Sea (SCS).

The ASEAN Leaders’ Summit takes place at a time tensions grip the region over China’s aggressive maneuvers in the West Philippine Sea (WPS). The most recent of which was the Aug. 4 water cannon attack as one of the Chinese Coast Guard ships tried to drive away Filipino ships on resupply mission to Ayungin Shoal located within our country’s exclusive economic zones (EEZ). Just last week, Vietnamese fishermen were reportedly injured when Chinese Coast Guard fired water cannon at their boat while fishing around the contested SCS.

The Philippines, through the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), lodged last week its latest diplomatic protest against the Chinese SCS map. Malaysia, another claimant country of the islands, islets, atolls, shoals, reefs and rocks around the SCS, also vows to file its own protest.

Even China’s border neighbor India has also protested Beijing’s new map that extended all the way to the northeastern state of Arunachai Pradesh and Aksai Chin region. India’s Ambassador to the Philippines, Shambu Kumaran expressed his government’s rejection to the new China Standard Map and calls it “cartographic expansionism.”

China’s Foreign Ministry claimed the release of the questioned map was just a “routine practice” and urged parties concerned to stay calm.

In the Aug. 31 pre-departure press briefing at Malacañang Palace, DFA Assistant Secretary Daniel Espiritu disclosed PBBM would raise anew before the ASEAN Summit our country’s strong adherence to “rules-based” international order, especially pertaining to our own WPS maritime boundaries.

In particular, this pertains to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that governs the 200-mile EEZ of archipelagic countries like the Philippines. This is not to mention the July 2016 arbitral ruling at The Hague that already invalidated China’s nine-dash line claims in the SCS but which Beijing refuses to honor.

PBBM reaffirmed the DFA’s assertions the very next day when he commented on the latest China map.

“Because we have stayed true to the rules-based international law, especially the UNCLOS, and that I think puts us at very solid ground in terms of our claims for territorial sovereignty, maritime territory,” PBBM declared.

“And this has been validated and supported by many, many countries around the world and we should take strength in that and I believe that again is a very big help to the Philippines in continuing to defend our maritime borders,” PBBM further averred without equivocation.

According to Espiritu, PBBM is scheduled to attend 13 leader’s level engagements, 12 of them summit sessions with other leaders, including the plenary session, retreat session, and separate meetings with the seven ASEAN dialogue partners. “The Philippines will continue to uphold and exercise freedom of navigation and over-flight in the South China Sea in accordance with international law,” Espiritu stressed.

Asked if Manila would push for the inclusion of a statement on China’s actions in Joint Communiqué customarily issued at the end of the yearly Leaders’ Summit, Espiritu replied: “The Philippines is definitely pushing for statements in that regard. But, of course, I cannot give you yet the final text of that because it’s still being negotiated.”

Espiritu, who handles ASEAN affairs, believes Manila could draw support from among fellow ASEAN member-states that are also claiming certain areas around the SCS, namely, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, and Vietnam. However, Espiritu conceded: “There are ten countries and, in other statements there are external partners involved and it only takes one to object and you lose consensus. So, I cannot predict at this point.”

He maybe only a sub-Cabinet level official but the DFA executive obviously spoke with the tacit imprimatur of the country’s chief foreign policy architect.

In fact, the same sentiments were echoed the next day by no less than PBBM himself during a set interview with reporters who covered his visit in Palawan. In carefully worded public reaction, PBBM went on to say: “Now, once again, we received the news, that now the nine-dash line has been extended to the 10-dash line. So, we have to respond to all of these and we will. But again, these are operational details that I would prefer not to talk about.”

But with strategic timing, PBBM visited Palawan, which is closest to the Ayungin Shoal where our BRP Sierra Madre has been anchored to protect our WPS territories. It was his late namesake father, former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. who established through Presidential Decree 1596 the municipality of the Pag-asa Island at the WPS, also nearby Palawan.

While in Palawan, PBBM also visited and met with the Western Command (WesCom) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). As their Commander-In-Chief and himself a Reserve Officer of the AFP, PBBM saluted the men and women of the WesCom troops as frontliners at the WPS to defend and hold the line protecting our country’s sovereign territories.