By Jonathan Dela Cruz
SCS is of course the South China Sea or, as the previous administration insisted, the WPS (West Philippine Sea) as if the renaming of that part of the world by us or any one of the five claimant countries would change the fact that not one can lay an internationally binding and implementable writ over it. Quite apart from the fact that the sea remains open to international commerce—thus satisfying the freedom-of-navigation clause of international treaties including Unclos—the reality is all the claimants save one occupy islands they call their own. In our case, it is the Kalayaan Islands Group (KIG) which we have occupied and fortified for years.
In our case, we have occupied and we continue occupying Pag-asa, the second-biggest natural island after Abu Ita, which is tightly held by Taiwan. On the other hand, China and Vietnam have their part of that group of islands with the Chinese expanding, reclaiming and lately, fortifying theirs. Vietnam has a group of islets occupied and equally fortified like ours and Taiwan’s. It’s confounding how some quarters, including high-profile individuals who have served in public office and who should know better, continue to spread half truths, even downright lies, about the real situation in the area.
A good number of them, such as Vice President Leni Robredo and Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, have yet to correct themselves after wrongfully and vehemently suggesting that we file a protest over the landing of Chinese bombers in an island in the Paracels on which we have no claim and which is hundreds of kilometers away from Philippine shores.
In the process, they muddle the issue, inject a fair amount of venom and hysteria over some exaggerated, hegemonic Chinese operations—enhanced fortifications, expansion of the runway and accelerated Chinese migration flows into the area. The shrillness of the calls for President Duterte to rethink his position on the Chinese initiatives and file diplomatic protests every time China makes a move no matter how inconsequential has become such a robotic exercise. It makes one wonder whether they are really the ones issuing such statements, as their every call comes with threats of impeachment, not solutions to what they call as a crisis waiting to happen.
The frequency and inordinateness of these calls really takes our breath away. What are these people up to? What’s drives their paroxysms of anger and threat?
Is it fear of Chinese invasion? I cannot imagine how that can happen given the international attention this dispute has generated. Any misstep on the part of the Chinese, say forceful takeover of an occupied island, can blow up on their faces. Please note we are saying occupied not claimed. If the Chinese have as much as unduly overreached and abused their welcome as they unduly reclaimed, expanded and fortified their own set of islands and occupied some unoccupied ones within the claimed exclusive economic zones of each and every other claimant country, then a protest can very well be issued.
But, as President Duterte himself noted, what can a protest-every-Chinese initiative do except irritate them and put the same on the record in the UN archives? Should we not rather expand and fortify our own occupied islands like what we are now trying belatedly in Pag-asa? Should we not instead engage China and the other claimants in a multi-party dialogue and adopt a binding and internationally acceptable code of conduct in the area? That would be a better use of our time, resources and goodwill. We can start with the Asean claimants, then engage China and Taiwan.
This incremental move is a lot better than the multi-party dialogues in the SCS/WPS which have been in and out of the Asean meetings with the UN and the expanded ones with each and every power bloc such as the ones we have annually within ourselves and our dialogue partners.
So, if not fear, what?
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Congratulations are in order for Lara Andrea Montales and Janelle Micaela Panganiban for having graduated summa cum laude at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and New York University, respectively.
They and a number of other Filipinos who also graduated from international schools, my son, Julian Rodrigo, who just got his Master of Laws degree from Georgetown University included deserve our applause and prayers. They made not only their families and friends but the country proud.
Montales graduated with a BS Economics degree major in finance and business analytics while Panganiban had a BS degree major in sociology, global health and public policy.
Our appreciation goes as well to the founders of the College Admissions Mentors for Peers, Michi Ferreol (Harvard ‘15), Kimi Rodriguez (NYU Abu Dhabi ‘15) and Kaye Kagaoan (Hamilton College ‘15), who introduced international education to Montales and Panganiban and mentored them, as it were, in navigating the waters of entry into internationally recognized universities.
Indeed, getting Filipino students interested in and acquainted with the culture and ways of international education should be a must-do program of the CHED and our schools of higher learning, public or private. That will not only open the world of learning to the future generation but enhance our own capability to accept foreign students in our own campuses.
My only hope is that these graduates will somehow come back and make use of their talents to make the country a better place and a worthy member of the family of nations.