Forked Tongues Dominate Our Andropausal Foreign Policy
Part Two of a Series of Three: From Zero-Sum to Win-win
What is Gibo Teodoro smoking lately?
A broadsheet owned by an oligarch attributed to the defense secretary this headline – “Talks with China useless”.
“If there are going to be bilateral discussions, it must be based on fundamental principles and it must be based on sincerity, that it shall not be used merely as a weapon in order to constrain the Philippines,” Teodoro told reporters.
The secretary’s arrogance stinks. Like his president, the cabinet member appears to be grossly misinformed about the objective standing of the Philippines with China.
There is nowhere else that China’s sincerity is to be measured from anything less than its essentiality to our economy.
Almost $12 billion exports to China from September 2022 to August 2023! This does not even include our exports to Hongkong. When combined, that adds up to almost $22 billion, or rounded closely to 30% share.
This means that our 2023 performance will equal, if not exceed 2022 marks.
Just under what Australian rock Teodoro has been hiding all the years that he was losing elections, I couldn’t care less. But the cold fact is without China, our economy would collapse overnight.
It was on March 25, 2016 when Customs at Shenzhen City mashed and buried 34.78 tons of “substandard bananas” imported from the Philippines. China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported, showing footage of a digger mashing the fruit and moving them into a pit for landfill, allegedly after sampling test indicated that the carbendazim contained in these bananas exceeded China’s standard limits for pesticide residue in food.
The Philippine Banana Growers and Exporters Association estimated that at least 200,000 workers in banana plantations in Davao region, and a decline in the P6-billion earnings growers posted in the previous year, was affected by this trade issue.
Pundits, however, cannot be stopped at theorizing that this was in anticipation of a ruling from the Arbitral tribunal where the Philippines lodged a complaint against China, which eventually came on July 12, 2016 a few days after the end of the Aquino administration.
The chart below shows that when BS Aquino III started playing toxic geopolitics with China with the 2012 Scarborough standoff, our exports disappeared from the chart. But even when we filed an arbitration against China in 2013 through 2014, a slight recovery was registered. It was during this time our provocation against China in the South China Seas were overtaken by awe at how fast China was building its artificial islands that we returned to bilaterally mending our fences.
But further deterioration of our foreign relations given increased decibels demonizing China through lawfare in 2015 influencing a steep decline onto 2016.
Maturing from the Sinophobic attitude of BS Aquino III, onto the enlightened foreign policy of Rodrigo Duterte, the phenomenal growth of our export market to China alone, jetted from less than $70 million in 2016 to close to $12 billion this year.
So, for the consumption of Teodoro who has already posted billboards around Metro Manila for his bid for the Senate in 2025, it seems that what would be more apropos given his affirmation in shaming China, is not sincerity that China has already proved supporting Philippine economy during Duterte’s watch, but pragmatism.
Teodoro qualified himself however admitted it was none of his business – as he correctly said the possibility of bilateral talks with China on the WPS issue will depend on the decision of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos and the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Another bozo act
Queueing for confessional for dummies is also the Senate president.
“We are very happy that the delegation from China graciously accepted our proposed amendment. So, we included and initially they didn’t want to have any mention of the UNCLOS and freedom of navigation, [but they agreed later on],” said Juan Miguel Zubiri in the sidelights of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentarian Forum.
Our politician’s penchant for drama based on technicalities never ceases to amaze me.
China agreed because this was a no-brainer. It has always been supportive of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas. China signed the document, it ratified it. (It was the United States that signed the treaty but did not ratify it.)
Even the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award, registered with the Permanent Court of Arbitration, protects China’s interests, in and outside of UNCLOS that obviously, Zubiri has not read in its entirety.
It may come as a surprise to many but contradictory to the sweeping allegation that UNCLOS invalidated the nine-dash line, Paragraph 272 of the ruling was not as dismissive and in fact protected China’s claim to sovereignty based on historic rights:
“Finally, because the Tribunal considers the question of historic rights with respect to maritime areas to be entirely distinct from that of historic rights to land, the Tribunal considers it opportune to note that certain claims remain unaffected by this decision. In particular, the Tribunal emphasises that nothing in this Award should be understood to comment in any way on China’s historic claim to the islands of the South China Sea.”
The same Paragraph 272 of the ruling protects China’s sovereignty rights to maritime zones according to UNCLOS:
“Nor does the Tribunal’s decision that a claim of historic rights to living and non-living resources is not compatible with the Convention, limit China’s ability to claim maritime zones in accordance with the Convention, on the basis of such islands.”
China has got us by the balls both ways.
As to the insertion of freedom of navigation, UNCLOS itself emphasizes on “innocent passage” and disassociates itself from military matters.
Far from the United States’ unilateral rules-based interpretation, under the Convention freedom of navigation is not absolute. {It appears that someone whispered to Zubiri’s ears to insert yet another buzz that his American friends can use in their disinformation.)
Freedom of navigation here, however, must comply with Article 19 of UNCLOS that defines passage as innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State. Such passage shall take place in conformity with this Convention and with other rules of international law.
The classic application was when the Arbitral Tribunal in Paragraph 1162 ruled: “that it lacks jurisdiction to consider the Philippines’ submissions on China’s military activities in Second Thomas or Ayungin shoal (No. 14 a-c).”
The reason is because when the Philippine Navy ran aground BRP Sierra Madre at the shoal, the Philippines militarized the area.
First, what the arbitral award expresses is that sovereign rights, ipso facto, exclusive economic zones, do not apply when “In the Tribunal’s view, this represents a quintessentially military situation.” (Paragraph 1161).
This explains why the Philippines cannot use UNCLOS and the Arbitral ruling to justify its actions under the freedom of navigation principle because as we have been caught many times, we are bringing materials to the militarized site and in violation of a agreed protocol.
Easy Daza
Undersecretary Teresita Daza was also lying through her teeth when she said last November 13 that the Philippines has not entered into any agreement “abandoning its sovereign rights and jurisdiction over its EEZ and continental shelf, including in the vicinity of Ayungin Shoal.”
Second, on May 29, 2013, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin assured the Chinese Ambassador to Manila Ma Keqing on BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal:
“We will not violate the agreement not to construct new structures. We told them we’re only bringing supplies for our troops there, like water, food. There will also be rotation of troops because we can’t put our men there permanently or they’ll go crazy.”
Undisputable history
The historicity of China-Philippine relations is on the record, this is why it is easy to catch those who distorts it.
The territory of the Philippines’ was determined by a series of international treaties, namely (1) the Treaty of Peace between the United States and Spain in Paris on December 10, 1898, (2) the Treaty of Washington between the United States and Spain for Cession of Outlying Islands of the Philippines on November 7, 1900 and the Convention Treaty between the United States and Great Britain on December 15, 1930 Delimiting the Boundary between the Philippine Archipelago and the State of North Borneo.
All these documents state that the border line of the western part of the territory of the Philippines is 118° East in longitude.
Anything over and above this in matter of sovereignty by virtue of historic right and precedent treaty, is a claim. The most ambitious of which was President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos’ presidential decree 1596 on the Kalayaan Island Group.
Our other claims are asymmetrical to sovereignty.
UNCLOS has given us sovereignty rights over 200 nautical miles of exclusive economic zone. Sovereignty rights, are not sovereignty, not can they supersede sovereignty.
But the posture of Undersecretary Daza is counter-productive, when she said: “We are being asked to give prior notification each time we conduct a resupply mission to Ayungin Shoal. We will not do so.”
From all indications, the DFA has taken the Arbitral Award by its hook and line but not the sinker. The cherry-picking days are over.
Paragraph 1198 of the South China Seas PCA Case Nº 2013-19 says:
“The root of the disputes presented by the Philippines in this arbitration lies not in any intention on the part of China or the Philippines to infringe on the legal rights of the other, but rather—as has been apparent throughout these proceedings—in fundamentally different understandings of their respective rights under the Convention in the waters of the South China Sea.
The only means to a conflict-resolution that even the bible that the DFA is using, is directing them to this wisdom:
“In such circumstances, the purpose of dispute resolution proceedings is to clarify the Parties’ respective rights and obligations and thereby to facilitate their future relations in accordance with the general obligations of good faith that both governments unequivocally recognise.”
Messrs. Teodoro and Zubiri and Ms. Daza, stop engaging in zero-sum strategies and tactics far from where the very arbitral ruling you have adopted, is pointing you to. You are already engaging military assets of other countries inferior to China, in your forever maze.
Your andropausal dead end has already wasted funding and resources that could have very been devoted to alleviate the despicable inflation that has engulfed our economy and impoverished our people.
At a time Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have repaired broken relations between the United States and China, you are stirring the waters of the South China Seas.
Fishing for a false flag therefore or an incident with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on China, bridges you to nowhere but a hotwar that the Philippines could find itself waging alone.
If you consider China to be the problem, then China is also the solution, and that enlightened and pragmatic road is through bilateral negotiations.
Next: Part Three – The Philippines Penchant for Lost Opportunities
Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan
is the anchor of Ang Maestro – the Unfinished Revolution at Radyo Pilipinas1, co-host of Opinyon Ngayon at Golden Nation Network Television, a political analyst, and author of books.
His third book, The Poverty of Power will soon be off-the-press. It is a historiography of controversial issues of spanning 36 years leading to the Demise of the Edsa Revolution and the Rise of the Philippine Phoenix. Paglinawan’s past best sellers have been A Problem for Every Solution (2015), a characterization of factors affecting Philippine-China relations, and No Vaccine for a Virus called Racism (2020) a survey of international news attempting to tracing its origins. These important achievements earned for him to be named one of the 2021 international laureates for the Awards for the Promotion of Philippine-China Understanding. Ado, as he called for short, was a former press attaché and spokesman of the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC and the Philippines’ Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York.
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