“The Philippine proxies are only hammering away at China, which exposes the targeted anti-China US agenda behind them“
The 10th anniversary of the so-called Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) tribunal award is coming up on July 12, and as expected, the US proxies in the Philippine are abuzz with their preparations to celebrate the “victory” of Philippine claims over portions of the South China Sea; concurrently too disputed with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and China. But the Philippine proxies are only hammering away at China, which exposes the targeted anti-China US agenda behind them.
According to the US-based National Bureau of Asian Research, the Philippines under President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, Sr. established its claim over parts of the Spratly’s Islands on the false assumption that it was “terra nullius”—after Japan renounced its title to the islands during the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. China and Vietnam had earlier claims. In the subsequent 1952 Treaty of Taipei, Japan renounced claims to Spratly and other Islands in favor of China.
Despite the disputable claim of “terra nullius,” Marcos Sr. still had good reason to make the Spratly’s claim while China and Vietnam were still preoccupied with internal problems. Marcos Sr. simultaneously cultivated Philippine relations with the People’s Republic of China, shook hands with Chairman Mao Tsetung, and established formal diplomatic ties to which is now on its 50th year —ties that could lead to negotiating the best deals over the Spratly’s claims.
Thirteen years after the momentous Marcos Sr. and Mao Tsetung handshake in 1988, President Corazon C. Aquino visited China’s new paramount leader, Premier Deng Xiaoping, who upon touching on the matter of the disputed Spratly’s claim, said: “Considering the fact that China has good relations with the countries concerned, we would like to set aside this issue now and explore later a solution acceptable to both sides. We should avoid military conflict over this and should pursue an approach of joint development.”
(Editor’s Note: Mao Zedong died on Sept 9, 1976, while Marcos died in his Honolulu exile on Sept 29, 1989. The handshake referred to was made in June 1975 when Marcos made a state visit to China and met Mao in Beijing.)
The South China Sea is estimated to hold proven resources of approximately 3.6 billion barrels of oil and 40.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in proved and probable reserves, as according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), in addition to billions still waiting to be discovered. In 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte signed an MOU with President Xi Jinping regarding a 60/40 oil and gas joint exploration deal in favor of the Philippines—but the deal has since been sabotaged time and again by U.S. proxies in the Filipino political “nomenklatura.”
In March of 2022, Pres. Duterte nearing the end of his term went public with a reminder for the country to honor its oil and gas joint deal with China: “You know I can only talk for this time that we are here, my administration… we should honor our original contracts…”. The U.S. proxies-saboteurs indeed surfaced, then Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin just one week to the end of the Duterte term announced the “termination” of the deal— too late for Duterte to say anything in response.
The PCA award is the key “Lawfare” (war using legalities) weapon to which the US proxies employ in arguing against any mutually beneficial cooperative joint ventures the Philippines can do with other countries. While their principal, the US, presses for its local dummies such as Forum Energy to attempt to seize the SCS for their financial consortiums. However, the disputed Philippine claims, not internationally recognized, are not sanctified “national patrimony” impervious to flexibility to fulfill the Constitution’s preamble to “promote the common good.”
Locsin alongside his fellow US-proxies’ sabotage of the China-Philippine joint oil and gas deal has already cost the Filipino nation untold billions of Dollars in opportunity costs. Meanwhile, despite the disputes in between Indonesia and China, both countries managed to seal their SCS joint oil and gas projects back in November 2024. This was simultaneous with the benefits from Chinese $ 6-billion funding for Jakarta-Bandung high-speed trainway, and up to $60-billion in nickel processing projects. Malaysia too, despite their maritime contentions with China, continued the billion-Dollar joint ventures with Beijing from EVs to railways.
While the rest of ASEAN is enjoying the bonanza with China, the Philippines is gradually shutting itself out of the burgeoning China market. In 2019, Chinese tourist arrivals amounted to 1.9 million visitors, stimulating 1.9-billion USD to the domestic economy. This number has since dropped down to 330,000 arrivals in 2024, a 1/6 fraction of what it once was under friendlier bilateral relations. The Philippines was the top banana exporter to China in 2019, and yet in 2024 Vietnam overtook us. The Marcos Jr. administration cancelled the $ 850-million Luzon Economic Corridor China funding in 2023 and has since found no replacement, a fate suffered by many other infra-projects.
Warm ties with China lasted up to January 2023, as the Philippines transitioned from Duterte to Bongbong Marcos. But in February of the same year, relations went south as the Marcos Jr. government turned its back on China and “pivoted” to the US for unstated reasons, ushered in unconstitutional US military bases expansion, and acquiesced to a US strategy-of-tension called “Project Myusho,” all designed to provoke the Chinese Coast Guard. Propagandizing subsequent clashes “to exact reputational costs on China” that have been hogging headlines and embittering ties since then.
After additional military bases, the U.S. continued installations of Typhon missile systems, NMESIS anti-ship missiles, then made the missile systems “roaming” (no permanent site), and built “civilian” ports in Batanes (near Taiwan), Palawan, and Cagayan de Oro. The U.S. is subverting the concept of an Asian NATO in the Philippines, including pushing a defense pact with tiny Lithuania and forcefully imposing weapons and warplane sales on the country. Yet, the U.S. refuses to accede to a free trade agreement with the Philippines.
Throughout the decade that the PCA arbitration award has been debated, one of its chief proponents, ex-SC Justice Antonio Carpio, has unceasingly carped that “China will comply,” which not only hasn’t happened, but rather has solidified China’s resolute assertion of its sovereignty over the areas disputed with the Philippines; with the latter progressively restricted from adventuring into the areas. Now, high profile anti-Beijing rhetoric Filipinos like ex-senator Tolentino is being sanctioned; although bilaterally agreed access is trouble-free as in Second Thomas Shoal.
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos’ strategy in staking the late claim to the Kalayaan Islands meant to gain leverage to achieve tangible gains for the nation through diplomacy, an option that all other ASEAN states are also clearly opting for. The other option is conflict—which certainly spells doom for the chronically decrepit Philippines, whose air force chief Gen. Arthur Cordura recently said “cannot match China’s air force even in the next 20 years,” but the arbitration award apace with the tension it is made to drive certainly is a boon to the US—who instigated it in the first place.
(The author, who supports Philippines-China understanding, organized the Philippine BRICS Strategic Studies think tank dedicated to promoting global multi-polarity.)
