"What were they thinking?"
"What were they thinking?"
Filipinos together with the rest of the civilized world were astounded not of the substance of the complaint filed by the two former officials of the Noynoy Aquino administration before the International Criminal Court against China’s President Xi Jinping, foreign minister Wang Yi, and Chinese ambassador to the Philippines, Zhao Jianhua on behalf of the Filipino fishermen for alleged “crimes against humanity” but on what they want to convey.
Some say the decision of former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario and former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales to file a nicely given diplomatic branding called “communication” was not really meant to achieve a legal victory but more of a political propaganda, hoping these two could persuade world opinion.
As one hoi poloi suggested, they should have filed their complaint on April Fools’ Day. Probably they would have been able to communicate to God to save them from the eternal damnation of stupidity. The world is askance suspecting something is terribly wrong with them. Even those opposed do not argue whether the ICC has jurisdiction over the case but are asking what specific provision in the Statute of Rome was violated by China?
The more discerning public do not focus why del Rosario and Morales filed their so-called communication with the ICC on March 15, or two days before the deadline set for our country to officially withdraw from an international organization that has the soul and the bones for being founded by the most ruthless and exploitative countries that practiced colonialism and imperialism, but on why the two failed to perform their duty while they were still in the service.
Had they filed their communication during the Noynoy Aquino administration, the two would not have been treated as such. That would have given them the stature they represent the claim of the 350,000 fishermen who were allegedly deprived of their economic livelihood directly as a result of the building of structures and acts that prevented them from fishing in an area they consider as their ancestral fishing ground. More than that, the country of the head of state they sued is not even a member of the ICC, or that the organization has mechanism to enforce its judgment.
Remember, it was the Aquino administration that assiduously worked to assure the return of the US military bases. Pro-US trumpeters have been sounding out the idea of amending the scope and dimension of our Mutual Defense Treaty to include not only territories in the archipelago proper. They want those uninhabited islands included, not realizing that the December 10, 1898 Treaty of Paris between the US and Spain excluded them as they are not part of the ceded territory. Specifically, the Reed Banks or the Panatag Shoal, an area known to have oil deposit which del Rosario is suspected to have keen interest, is a disputed territory.
People who have been hooting for the presence of the US to allow it to regularly patrol in the South China Sea should understand that it is the US that creates the political situation that would necessitate their presence in this country. Even in the two regional but limited bloody wars it initiated in Asia, the Korean war and the War in Indochina, it was this country that contributed in its own way to the US war efforts there.
Columnist Bobi Tiglao insists it was del Rosario’s booboo decision why we lost Scarborough Shoal or Panatag Island to China. It was the US, through its reconnaissance and surveillance operations in the South China Sea that informed the Philippine government. Del Rosario alerted the Philippine navy of the presence of Chinese fisherman allegedly harvesting endangered marine species in the area.
The Aquino government, in turn, responded by sending BRP Gregorio del Pilar to assist our coast guard in arresting those Chinese fisherman. That was in the month of April 2012.
China protested claiming the Philippines was “militarizing” the shoal, and responded by sending its own coast guard vessels accompanied by an “armada” of fishermen to create a picture of seaborne “people power” against an aggressive Philippine navy. For weeks, vessels of the two countries face each other in the shoal.
It was clear that the standoff was the direct result of the alert made by the US to the Philippines. Whether the decision to send navy ships to assist our coast guard was made by del Rosario or by Aquino is now inconsequential. What is clear is that during that crucial moment of the standoff, nowhere could one find the shadow of any US official exerting effort to help break the impasse peacefully.
The Philippine was in a very tight situation on how to resolve the impasse like setting free the Chinese fishermen or of leaving the shoal, where our ships were entrapped, without losing control of the shoal. Neither did the US navy nor any American diplomatic trouble shooter showed up to help us out in that tight situation they created.
As conveyed by Trillanes to Tiglao, del Rosario already reached (a sequential withdrawal) agreement in Washington.” Nobody knows whether that agreement was reached between the Chinese and the Philippine government through the backchannel efforts of the US. But most likely, the US was fully aware of what was going on. In fact, the friction originated by the US to alert us of the “Chinese invasion” in the Panatag Shoal with the overreacting Aquino government sending in our warship caused China to interpret the decision as a challenge to their presence in the area which they too claim as their territory.
Nobody really knows, but the facts are clear that when we withdrew our ship, the understanding is for a simultaneous withdrawal. Tiglao, quoting del Rosario, in an article he wrote in 2017, “During the impasse at Scarborough Shoal with China, we were approached by the US, an honest broker for both China and the Philippines, to agree to a simultaneous withdrawal of ships from the shoal. We therefore agreed. At the appointed time, we withdrew, whereas China did not—in violation of the agreement.” However, neither the US nor China admitted there was an agreement—only talks for such an agreement. Indeed, if there was an agreement, would the “honest broker” US not create a ruckus that China reneged to an agreement it brokered.?”
This is the big question many of our pro-US supporters are asking. The US cannot even confirm or refuse to acknowledge that it took place, except to keep us hanging in limbo that the US is ready anytime to help us against China, but adding as our incentive that we include the uninhabited islands not included the treaty they handed us in1946. It became even clear that the US wants to incorporate matters where their interest takes precedence over our interest which is to freely navigate treating South China Sea as their lake in the Pacific rim.
rpkapunan@gmail.com
