Mischief, part3

Mischief part3

The regional squabble over the Spratlys does not go unnoticed by the remaining world superpower, the US. It is in her security interest to maintain equilibrium in the balance of power and discourage hegemony in East Asia.

The East Asian quadrilateral -- the US, China, Japan and Russia that first surfaced in 1905 geopolitics has resurfaced after the Cold War tensions of Europe eased. Western Pacific rim tensions are developing into potential conflicts not just between China and the US but also between Japan and China, the two powers in East Asia, fuelled by the red-hot economic growth of China. The assembly of ASEAN countries further complicates the equilibrium.

Regional tensions focus on the Taiwan Strait, Korean peninsula and the South China Sea affecting the maritime dimensions of the regions security. Currently, the US-Japan security treaty provides security for Japan that does not disturb its neighbors. With the prospect of Chinese hegemony, Japan will likely resist and raise regional tensions. Thus, the US strategy would be to assist a rising China to integrate peacefully into the regional and global order. This includes the regional spat in the Spratleys and Paracels.

Widely acknowledged by scholars and policymakers alike is that economic growth lies at the center of China's national policy agenda. Chinese industrial and technology planning shifted away from the weapons-focused goals of the 1950s-70s toward a much more comprehensive effort, including demilitarization and an investment shift from heavy to light and high-tech industry. Some policy analysts predict that the debate about China’s defense policy increasingly centers on two themes: (1) long-range balance of power considerations in the Asian-Pacific region, especially the likely future role of the United States; and (2) the possibility that China might deploy its military forces to secure resources required for long-range economic growth.

To become both self-sufficient in energy and a dominant force in the region's macroeconomy, China must be able to guarantee sea borne access to resource supply and routes of trade. Naval modernization, in particular, has therefore taken on special resonance because of China's growing demand for energy. Debate about precisely how resource and territorial claims overlap has been particularly pronounced, for example, in discussion of China's goals in the South China Sea, where balance of power considerations clearly matter a great deal but where China's "step-by-step" advance to the Spratly Islands also raises questions about how a hedge against resource dependence may fit into Chinese strategic calculations. Most major sea-lanes of communication for East Asian energy shipments lie in these waters. As U.S. naval dominance is likely to remain unchallenged for decades to come, many of China's goals in the region can probably be met simply by "free-riding" off the U.S.-dominated status quo.

As the political scientist Robert Ross noted, U.S. strategy in Asia since the end of the Vietnam conflict in 1975, has involved de facto maritime balancing against both Chinese and Soviet continental power. "From Japan in Northeast Asia to Malaysia in Southeast Asia, the East Asian mainland is rimmed with a continuous chain of island countries that possess strategic location and naval facilities,” he observed . Access to these countries enables a maritime power to carry out effective naval operations along the perimeter of a mainland power. It also prevents continental powers that have maritime aspirations, such as contemporary China, from developing unimpeded access to the blue water ocean.

In effect, the requirements of such a strategy grant the U.S. navy the ability to secure access for the U.S. and its allies to strategic resources, including oil. This also gives the U.S. a special role as the systemic guarantor of secure shipping lanes. Thus, "even should China develop naval capabilities in its coastal waters, U.S. and allied commercial and military fleets could use secure shipping lanes that are far from mainland aircraft and are dominated by U.S. air and naval forces based in maritime nations."

Even if China wishes to enforce its claims in the South China Sea for reasons of sovereignty, the region provides few jumping off points from which China would be in a position to build strategic power projection capabilities that might challenge the U.S.-dominated maritime system. The Spratly Islands are simply too small to serve as a stepping stone to further power projection. This reduces their strategic value for anything more than an assertion of localized claims. Does it truly threaten the underpinnings of the regional strategic balance if China were to occupy the Spratlys? In light of how little a claim such as Mischief Reef would likely contribute to a Chinese challenge to American maritime balancing, the answer is probably: very little indeed.

In effect, de jure recognition of Chinese sovereignty over the area could actually be stabilizing over the long term. It would at once defang rabid Chinese nationalist sentiment by satisfying a Chinese sovereignty claim, while at the same time, in practice, giving China very little of substance with which to challenge the security of Asia's sea lanes.

HB 3216

The House of Representatives passed HB 3216 which includes both Scarborough and Kalayaan Islands within the baseline. Malacañang warned that if passed into a law that version would create problems because if we use that to measure our claim for extended continental shelf, the deadline at the UN being on May 13, 2009, it would be rejected for not being UNCLOS-compliant. If rejected, that means the international community would also not recognize our jurisdiction over those maritime areas. (Note: there is no deadline for the filing of a country’s archipelagic baseline; we can deposit it anytime with the office of the UN secretary-general and at the UN International Maritime Organization in London. The deadline that we are trying to meet is the filing of our claim for extended continental shelf which is on May 13, 2009. However, to determine our Extended Continental Shelf from 200 to 350 nautical miles sub-ocean extension of land, we need an official baseline.)

As Henry Bensurto, of the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs said, “There would be a lot of foreign ships in those areas. At which point is our Navy going to sink those foreign ships if you don’t have a clear line?” Review the Doctrine of innocent passage, Mr Bensurto.

Meanwhile on March 28 Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. lifted the intact House Bill 3218 to speed up its passage in time for the May 2009 deadline. However, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, chairperson of the Senate foreign relations committee, objected to the bill as this would declare the Philippines as an archipelagic state, which would reduce rather than extend the country’s territory. Santiago, warned that the Constitution had already defined the national territory and any attempt to declare the Philippines as an archipelagic state under the UNCLOS would require Charter change, “because it would reduce the national territory. The Constitution states that the national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction. The Constitution does not describe the Philippines as an archipelagic state, which is a term of art used by the UN Convention.”

The senator said that if the Philippines declares itself an archipelagic state, it would contradict the Treaty of Paris that set out the boundaries of the country’s national territory, “which are wider than those allowed by the UNCLOS.”

In conclusion, the Spratlys storm in a teacup and its effect on our territorial claims under UNCLOS is securely tied to the hegemony of the US in the Pacific and Indian Oceans

Since U.S. naval dominance of Asia’s sea-lanes is likely to remain unchallenged in terms of capabilities-- by a continental power such as China--for several decades, we must act accordingly. For a weak nation like the Philippines which is decades short of first world status even by an Arroyo dream, this situation demands fawning and groveling to the prospective US Presidential candidate of 2008, a Republican right wing conservative, and hope he wins. Even better, activate kamaganak influence in the US elections for Fil-Ams to vote Republican. A Democrat President will be bad news for the Kalayaan Islands that may go the way of the Sabah claim.

Disputes About Corals: Mischief Reef part2

Disputes About Corals: Mischief Reef part2

In a previous article, Mischief on Mischief Reef, one of the ongoing projects became a done deal allegedly with a string attached – a joint Phil-Sino oil exploration ( called the Joint Marine Survey Undertaking or JMSU in short) in the Spratlys Islands, which is now eyed as the next Senate probe. A flashback to the Mischief Reef episode:

Click map to enlarge

A Shopping List

As the belligerent rhetoric escalates (Armis bella non venenis geri – War is waged with weapons, not with poison.), Paranaque Representative Roilo Golez, former PN officer, urged government to acquire a squadron of fighter planes to back up its claim on the Kalayaan Islands. Golez proposed the acquisition of 18 multirole fighters like the Israeli KFIR jets costing $7 million each equipped with the latest weapons such as missiles capable of 20 miles range and smart bombs.

The proposal may have had an eye on the AFP modernization plan, but dismissed as mere bravado. The AFP modernization, however, was a live project, 15-year program of the administration that surveyed prices of military hardware (March 1999):

Aegis type destroyer – $1 billion; armament: Tomahawk cruise missile, Harpoon ship-to-ship missile, phase array radar.

F15, F16, F/A18 jet fighter = $100 million

B2 - $2.1 billion

B52 bomber plus support tankers & craft - $7.5 billion

Aircraft Carrier, complete, aircraft not included - $20 billion

Apache helicopter - ??

Patrol boat - $3 million (2^nd hand)

Frigate - ??

Submarine, mini, (ala Israeli Dolphin class) modified capable of carrying cruise missiles with nuclear warheads (weapons not included) - ??

The stuff is what chief-of-staffs dream of, and that’s exactly its ending --- a dream.

The de facto Chinese occupation and construction on the Mischief Island establishes a strong claim that simultaneously weakens Philippine rights. It is generally held that a legal element of sovereignty requires not only the legal right to exercise power, but the actual exercise of such power. ("No de jure sovereignty without de facto sovereignty.") In other words, neither claiming nor merely exercising the power of a Sovereign (by possession) is sufficient; sovereignty requires both elements. Even in International law, the rule that possession is nine-tenths of the law is recognized.

House Bill No. 3216 which seeks to amend Republic Acts 3046 and 5446, the laws defining the Philippines’ maritime borders, has been approved on second reading on mid-March 2008, and was up for approval on third and final reading. When Rep. Antonio Cuenco announced that the House of Representatives abruptly halted deliberations on House Bill 3216, a measure that delineates Philippine territory in the South China Sea extending to the Kalayaan Islands Group and Scarborough Shoal, he justified the move on the grounds he’d been informed by the Chinese embassy of their objections.

House bill 3216 redefining the country's archipelagic baselines won't be acceptable under international law because the new baselines would encompass islands not actually possessed by the country and outside of the archipelago, said Henry Bensurto, secretary general of the Commission on Maritime and Oceanic Affairs Secretariat, of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In particular, the measure identified at least six base points (structures built on isles to mark a state's claim) that the country did not actually possess, It's a baseline that will have difficulty being recognized under international law, Bensurto said.

Under UNCLOS, an archipelago is allowed to draw straight archipelagic baselines that should not include islands outside of the archipelago. Islands outside of the archipelago, such as the Kalayaan Group of Islands and the Scarborough Shoal, should be delineated through the method of normal baseline under the principle of the "regime of islands,'' Bensurto said.

By excluding these islands from the baseline, the Philippines isn't dropping its claims over them since the basis for these claims, Presidential Decree 1896, would remain in effect even if a new baseline law is passed. The baseline would be the “reckoning point'' for the delineation of the extended continental shelf (ECS), the seabed beyond the 200-nautical mile continental shelf Bensuerto said.

Beijing has expressed displeasure over the passage of the measure, specifically the provisions including the Kalayaan Group of Islands, Scarborough Shoal, and the waters off Zambales within the Philippine baseline.

UNCLOS

The acronym UNCLOS stands for United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It has something to do with our territorial sovereignty. During the era of sailing ships, a nation’s sovereignty extended up to three miles from the shoreline – the range of cannons at the time. When modern battle ships of World War I mounted cannons capable of hurling shells 12 miles, the territorial sovereignty was extended to 12 miles. However, our Constitution defined our territory to conform to the Treaty of Paris concluded with the Spanish-American War of 1898. The boundaries will be modified by UNCLOS.

The International Hydrographic Bureau defines the South China Sea as the body of water stretching in a Southwest to Northeast direction, whose southern border is South Sumatra and Kalimantan and whose northern border is the Strait of Taiwan from the northern tip of Taiwan to the Fukien coast of China. In the center of this sea are the Paracels and the Spratly islands.

The Spratly islands are coral, low and small, about 5 to 6 meters above water, spread over 160,000 to 180,000 square kilometers of sea zone with a total land area of 10 square kilometers only. Many of these islands are partially submerged islets, rocks, and reefs that are little more than shipping hazards not suitable for habitation. The islands are important, however, for strategic and political reasons, because ownership claims to them are used to bolster claims to the surrounding sea and its resources. The area is rich in natural resources such as oil and natural gas.

Several countries have claims in the area. These claims are based upon internationally accepted principles extending territorial claims offshore onto a country's continental shelf, as well as the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The 1982 convention created a number of guidelines concerning the status of islands, the continental shelf, enclosed seas, and territorial limits, the most relevant to the disputed Spratlys:

Article 3, which establishes that "every state has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles";

Articles 55 - 75 define the concept of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which is an area up to 200 nautical miles beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea. The EEZ gives coastal states "sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and its subsoil..."

Article 121, which states that rocks that cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.

The establishment of the EEZ created the potential for overlapping claims in semi-enclosed seas such as the South China Sea. These claims could be extended by any nation which could establish a settlement on the islands in the region. South China Sea claimants have clashed as they tried to establish outposts on the islands (mostly military) in order to be in conformity with Article 121 in pressing their claims.

In late 1998 the presidents of China and the Philippines agreed to form a committee of experts to advise on confidence-building measures.

In late November 1999 officials of ASEAN agreed to draft a regional code of conduct to prevent conflicts over the Spratly Islands in advance of the ASEAN summit in Manila. The Philippines, which drafted much of the proposed code, sought to align ASEAN's members in a common stance against what it saw as Chinese expansionism in the Spratlys. China agreed to hold talks with ASEAN member nations on the newly formulated draft code of conduct. But China, which claims the entire South China Sea, signaled it was not ready to agree to the ASEAN draft. Vietnam wanted the code to cover the Paracels while Malaysia did not want the code to refer to all of the South China Sea. China, which is not an ASEAN member and claims all of the islands, opposed inclusion of the Paracels in the code..

In January 2000 photographs of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands were shown to the foreign ministers of the other eight ASEAN countries by Philippine foreign minister, Domingo Siazon. The photographic evidence showed that China had expanded installations on the reef since 1995, when it first started building what it said were shelters for fishermen. There are four sites on the reef with installations that could be connected to form a fortress, or a five-star hotel for fishermen.

On 4 November 2002 the Governments of the Member States of ASEAN and the Government of the People's Republic of China signed the "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea." The Parties undertook to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities in the South China Sea that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.

China and the Philippines have discussed possible joint exploration for petroleum in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, Jose de Venecia, said the chairman of China's parliament, Wu Bannguo, made the proposal 31 August 2003 during talks in Manila. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing vowed to increase investments in the Philippines to match the growing Philippine investment in China. The two ministers also discussed the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

In September 2003 representatives of the Philippines, China and other claimant countries of the Spratly Islands signed a declaration of peace to promote the development of the resources in the disputed islands. The declaration was signed at the Asian Association of Parliaments for Peace (AAPP) conference in the Philippines.

In March 2005, the national oil companies of China, the Philippines, and Vietnam signed a joint accord to conduct marine seismic experiments in the Spratly Islands for economic purposes.

Suggested confidence-building measures among claimant countries include joint research and development in the Spratlys. Among the suggestions to enhance the development of the Spratly Islands include the creation of a marine park; establishment of a South China Sea Institute for Marine Resources Management, conducting a joint survey and assessment of the mineral and hydrocarbon potential and implementation of maritime safety and surveillance measures.

Mischief Reef is part of the Spratly Islands. Mischief Reef was discovered by Henry Spratly in 1791 and named by the German Sailor Heribert Mischief, one of his crew. China has sent naval vessels into the area and constructed crude buildings on some of the islands. Beijing maintains that the shacks are there solely to serve Chinese fishing boats. Manila describes the buildings as "military-type" structures. According to reconnaissance photos by the Philippine Air Force, these structures do not look like fishermen's sanctuaries. They seem to have radar systems which are not normally associated with the protection of fishermen.

The Kalayaan Islands, as Filipinos call some of the Spratlys, lie in a shallow section of the South China Sea west of the Philippine archipelago. Kalayaan is a rich fishing area that had been identified as a potential source of petroleum deposits. Tomas Cloma, owner of a maritime training school, visited the islands in 1956, claimed them for himself, named them Kalayaan (Freedomland), and then asked the Philippine government to make them a protectorate.

Vietnam brands as erroneous the Philippine theory that the Spratly Islands were "res nullius" when Tomas Cloma "pretended to 'discover' the Vietnamese Truong Sa islands in 1956". Manila regularly tried to extract from the United States a declaration that it would defend the Philippines' claim to the Kalayaans as part of the Mutual Defense Treaty between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America, but the United States just as regularly refused so to interpret that treaty.

The Philippine government first put forth informal claims to Kalayaan in the mid-1950s. Philippine troops were sent to three of the islands in the Kalayaans in 1968, taking advantage of the war situation in the Republic of Vietnam. In 1974, the Philippine government declared that it had garrisoned five of the islands. In 1978 Marcos made formal claims by declaring that fifty-seven of the islands were part of Palawan Province by virtue of their presence on the continental margin of the archipelago. The Philippine military continued to garrison marines on several islands.

The Spratly Islands dispute eased since the 1990s. This was due, in part, to China's rising economic stature (its GDP averaging over 9% annually) and the interdependency it, in turn, fostered amongst Asian nations. China knows that any crisis in the South China Sea could severely restrict the commercial shipping traffic that is vital to their continued prosperity. Another contributor to the relative calm is fact that proven oil reserves in the area are disappointingly low so far.

Philippine claims on the Spratly Islands

While the Philippine claim to the Spratly Islands was first expressed in the United Nations General Assembly in 1946, Philippine involvement in the Spratlys did not begin in earnest until 1956, when on 15 May Filipino citizen Tomas Cloma proclaimed the founding of a new state, Kalayaan (Freedom Land). Cloma’s Kalayaan encompassed fifty three features spread throughout the eastern South China Sea, including Spratly Island proper, Itu Aba, Pag-asa and Nam Yit Islands, as well as West York Island, North Danger Reef, Mariveles Reef and Investigator Shoal. Cloma then established a protectorate in July 1956 with Pag-asa as its capital and Cloma as “Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Kalayaan State”. This action, although not officially endorsed by the Philippine government, was considered by other claimant nations as an act of aggression by the Philippines and international reaction was swift. Taiwan, the PRC, South Vietnam, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands lodged official protests (the Netherlands on the premise that it considered the Spratly Islands part of Dutch New Guinea) and Taiwan sent a naval task force to occupy the islands and establish a base on Itu Aba.

Tomas Cloma and the Philippines continued to state their claims over the islands In October 1956 Cloma traveled to New York to plead his case before the United Nations and the Philippines posted troops on three islands by 1968 on the premise of protecting Kalayaan citizens. In early 1971 the Philippines sent a diplomatic note on behalf of Cloma to Taipei demanding the ROC’s withdrawal from Itu Aba and on 10 July in the same year Ferdinand Marcos announced the annexation of the 53 island group known as Kalayaan, although since neither Cloma or Marcos specified which fifty three features constituted Kalayaan, the Philippines began to claim as many features as possible. In April of 1972 Kalayaan was officially incorporated into Palawan province and was administered as a single “poblacion” (township), with Tomas Cloma as the town council Chairman and by 1992, there were twelve registered voters on Kalayaan. The Philippines also reportedly attempted to land troops on Itu Aba in 1977 to occupy the island but were repelled by ROC troops stationed on the island. There were no reports of casualties from the conflict. In 2005, a cellular phone base station was erected by the Philippines’ Smart Communications on Pag-asa Island.

The Philippines base its claims of sovereignty over the Spratlys on the issues of res nullius and geography. The Philippines contend Kalayaan was res nullius as there was no effective sovereignty over the islands until the 1930s when France and then Japan acquired the islands. When Japan renounced their sovereignty over the islands in the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, there was a relinquishment of the right to the islands without any special beneficiary. Therefore, argue the Philippines, the islands became res nullius and available for annexation. Philippine businessman Tomas Cloma did exactly that in 1956 and while the Philippines never officially supported Cloma’s claim, upon transference of the islands’ sovereignty from Cloma to the Philippines, the Philippines used the same sovereignty argument as Cloma did. The Philippine claim to Kalayaan on geographical bases can be summarized using the assertion that Kalayaan is distinct from other island groups in the South China Sea because:

It is a generally accepted practice in oceanography to refer to a chain of islands through the name of the biggest island in the group or through the use of a collective name. Note that Spratly (island) has an area of only 13 hectares compared to the 22 hectare area of the Pag-asa Island. Distance-wise, Spratly Island is some 210nm off Pag-asa Islands. This further stresses the argument that they are not part of the same island chain. The Paracels being much further (34.5nm northwest of Pag-asa Island) is definitely a different group of islands

A second argument used by the Philippines regarding its geographical claim over the Spratlys is that all the islands claimed lie within its archipelagic baselines, the only claimant who can make such a statement. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stated that a coastal state could claim two hundred nautical miles of jurisdiction beyond its land boundaries. It is perhaps telling that while the Philippines is a signatory to UNCLOS, the PRC and Vietnam are not. The Philippines also argue, under Law of the Sea provisions, that the PRC can not extend its baseline claims to the Spratlys because the PRC is not an archipelagic state. Whether this argument (or any other used by the Philippines) would hold up in court is debatable but possibly moot, as the PRC and Vietnam seem unwilling to legally substantiate their claims and have rejected Philippine challenges to take the dispute to the World Maritime Tribunal in Hamburg.

In the mid-1970s, the Philippines pursued its own detente with China, giving priority to economic considerations. The two sides agree to settle their bilateral disputes in accordance with the recognized principles of international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The Mischief Reef incident of 1995 was the first time for China to engage in military confrontation with an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member other than Vietnam. The incident set off a chain reaction among Southeast Asian countries, individually, and collectively as the ASEAN. The United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and even the European Union also expressed concern. Later in the year China pledged to use international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as basis for negotiating South China Sea issues and signed a "code of conduct" with the Philippines formalizing its rejection of force to resolve the dispute.

The two sides agree to promote cooperation in fields such as protection of the marine environment, safety of navigation, prevention of piracy, marine scientific research, disaster mitigation and control, search and rescue operations, meteorology, and maritime pollution control. They also agree that on some of the above-mentioned issues, multilateral cooperation could eventually be conducted.

The dispute erupted anew in late October 1998 (see Winks_Blinks blog, Mischief on Mischief Reef) when the Philippines discovered that China was expanding the structures on Mischief Reef, using armed military supply ships.

The two sides did meet in March 1999 in Manila to discuss the issue. China rejected the Philippine demand that it dismantle the Structures. China also denied that it had ever offered joint use of the structures to the Philippines. And it demanded that Manila cease all reconnaissance flights over the disputed feature. The talks nearly collapsed when China refused to put in writing a verbal commitment not to build any new structures on any Philippine-claimed features and only reluctantly agreed to state that the Mischief Reef structures would be used only by civilians. On 30 March, Manila suggested that the two sides use the machinery established by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea -- the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea -- to determine the rightful owner of Mischief Reef. Although China has ratified the Convention and stated several times that it would use the Convention to resolve the South China Sea disputes, it rejected the Philippine suggestion.

The Philippines publicly urged ASEAN to issue a statement at its Hanoi summit (December 1998) to call on China to respect international laws and co-operate to foster regional peace and stability.(31) ASEAN avoided dealing with the China-Philippine dispute in public, but an internal ASEAN report criticized China for actions not compatible with the UNCLOS and the China-Philippines code of conduct. This criticism was validated by China's rejection of the Philippine suggestion that the Mischief Reef dispute be resolved by the Law of the Sea Tribunal established under the auspices of the UNCLOS.

The most significant gain the Philippines seems to have made in attempting to internationalize the issue is a seeming change of position in the Mischief/South China Sea dispute on the part of the United States. The Philippines began by inviting a senior member of the United States House Committee on International Relations, Dana Rohrbacher, on a flight over Mischief Reef organized by the Philippines Air Force in early December 1998. Rohrbacher said he saw three Chinese warships near the Reef and he accused China of "aggression" and the Clinton Administration of downplaying the incident. He went on to pledge that the U.S. government would help the Philippines in its dispute with China. Of course China said that Rohrbacher was "meddling" in a bilateral dispute and pointed out that the China-Philippines code of conduct called for settling disputes bilaterally.

In the year 2000, Scarborough Shoal became another point of tension in the territorial disputes between the Philippines and China. In January, a Philippine navy patrol vessel fired three warning shots near two Chinese fishing boats off Scarborough Shoal. China then accused the Philippine navy of firing at, harassing, and forcibly boarding its fishing boats, and even robbing its fishers in the waters near the feature. The Philippines denied these accusations and in turn accused the Chinese fishers of harvesting endangered coral and illegal dynamite fishing. When China warned the Philippines against further provocative acts, the Philippines Senator Blas Ople alluded to the US/Philippines 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and declared that the United States would back it in the event of war with China. Then in May, one Chinese fisherman was shot dead by the Philippine marine patrol forces in the disputed Scarborough area.

Scarborough Shoal or what China calls Huangyan Island consists of a barely submerged reef enclosing a lagoon. The feature is located about 600 nm east of China's Hainan Island, and about 1,000 nm from China's mainland. It is about 128 nm west of Luzon. The Shoal is surmounted by scattered rocks and the ruins of an iron tower. The Philippines claims the feature because it lies within its 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone. But China claims that it has had sovereignty over the feature since "time immemorial."

The Geopolitical Context of the Mischief Reef and Scarborough Shoal Disputes

In order to understand the apparent lack of regional and international support for the Philippine position in its dispute with China, it is instructive to put the dispute in the geopolitical context of the disputes.
China/United States: At the strategic level, post-Cold War U.S. policy toward Asia in general and China in particular has been in disarray, choices ranging from "engagement" to "containment," but the United States had difficulty choosing and maintaining a particular policy, in terms of both its bilateral relations with China and the role it wants China to have in the East and Southeast Asian regions. China, on the other hand, tends to fear the worst -- that U.S. political and military policy towards Asia is designed to contain China -- in intent if not in practice.
Putting pressure on the US to intervene, is its defense guarantees and treaties with a number of the claimants, but reluctant to do so. In 1995 the US naval war college ran a series of computer war games simulating a conflict with China over the South China Sea. In every case Chinese forces won the day.

The Chinese vision of a post-Cold War order for Asia translates into nationalist behaviors. It has hardened its position over the political future of Taiwan and not relented in its pursuit of maritime territorial claims, to the dismay of Southeast Asian nations. In this context, China's 1995 move on to Mischief Reef was not a surprise but a rationally calculated move by Beijing, indeed a manifestation of China's growing nationalism, economic power, and confidence.

China/Philippines/United States: After China and the Philippines established diplomatic relations in 1975, the major problem was the uneven implementation of Manila's "one China" policy. Beijing was strongly opposed to diplomatic contacts between Manila and Taipei. But the territorial dispute between China and the Philippines is clearly separate from the Taiwan issue. Indeed, given the fact that both China and Taiwan hold identical claims to the Spratly islands and are not challenging each other's claims, the Philippines also has a territorial dispute with Taiwan, although Taiwan in recent years has not taken military action to solidify its claims.

Both the Philippines and China have tried to treat the issue as separate from their bilateral relations. But the dispute had some impact on Philippine politics and its relations with China. Although few believe that China intends to invade the Philippines, the Mischief Reef dispute has been identified by the Philippines National Security Council as one of the two "most urgent" security problems facing the Philippines agreed the battle with China should continue to be fought on two diplomatic fronts - through dialogue with China and with international help. Modernization of the Philippines Armed Forces is again on the agenda. To demonstrate its displeasure with China, the Philippines postponed a planned visit by President Estrada to Beijing in April 1999 while keeping in place his visits to Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan. President Estrada did make the trip to Beijing, in May 2000, but the two governments were able to agree on little more than a pledge to resolve the Mischief and Scarborough disputes peacefully.

Because the Philippines does not have the resources to modernize its air and naval forces to a level that they can credibly match a future Chinese show of force, it has pressed for third party arbitration, including mediation by the United States. Indeed, much to China's dismay, the Philippines argues that a U.S. presence in the region would serve as a deterrent to China. The Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) signed between the Philippines and the United States could serve that purpose. Among other things, the VFA allows the militaries of the two countries to resume major military exercises, combined training, and ship visits. The impasse Manila ran into with Beijing in resolving the territorial dispute, including clashes between Philippine maritime patrol forces and Chinese fishermen operating in the disputed waters, contributed to the passage of the VFA in the Philippine Senate in May 1999. In January 2000, the United States and the Philippines did launch a joint military exercise in waters close to the disputed Spratly islands. Some in the Philippine media interpreted the exercise as a revelation of U.S. commitment to Philippine security. But the weakness of the Philippine armed forces is only part of the explanation for the lack of a more forceful response from the Philippines vis-a-vis China. The Philippines also suffers from a lack of coherent leadership in its China policymaking.

Sellout
The Manila headlines about yet unverified reports of alleged “sellout” by the Philippines to China of our country’s territorial claim over the disputed Spratlys islands unsettled some think-tank groups in the United States. The influential US-ASEAN Business Council raised this issue with Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap while he was in Washington DC along with Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes as official representatives of the Philippines to the 3rd Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC). Such concern was expressed in very clear terms by US-ASEAN Business Council president Matthew Daley who was formerly the deputy assistant secretary for East-Asia Affairs of the US State Department.

“There’s concern on external issue about Philippines and China’s attitude regarding maritime boundary as it impacts on oil exploration. It affects Vietnam more directly but also affects the rest of the countries in this region,” Daley pointed out. The US-ASEAN Business Council president noted that “Chinese talks with major oil companies discourage them from exploring natural resources in the area because other governments feel that exploiting resources should also include them.” Aside from Vietnam, Daley added, this issue is also “to affect Indonesia beyond Spratlys.”  

Daley informed Yap that the reported joint exploration and development of resources in South China Sea between the Philippines and China raised concerns from other claimants like Vietnam which were not made part of this undertaking, to look at it with suspicions. Obviously trying to couch his words with diplomatese, Daley echoed this concern as “directly affecting Vietnam” where most US-ASEAN Business Council members, composed of the biggest and largest American multinational companies operating in the region, are shifting or have already shifted to this country several decades after the US-Vietnam war in the 1960s.

Detained military rebel leader-turned opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV succeeded to a certain degree to draw the US into the NBN-ZTE brouhaha by bringing out the bogey of Spratlys, playing the China card to the Americans. The neophyte opposition Senator filed a resolution based on unnamed sources that raised allegations in media about the Spratlys “sellout” by President Arroyo in her approval of bilateral agreement with China involving as much as $1.3 billion worth of official development assistance (ODA) package that included the NBN-ZTE contract.

Based on media reports, Trillanes asked his colleagues in the Senate to look into the allegations where the Philippine government supposedly agreed to this loan package offered by China in exchange for our country’s giving up territorial claims over the Spratlys. This agreement, the anti-Arroyo Senator charged, is already being implemented in the guise of a joint seismic development agreement between the Philippines and China in the exploration for oil and natural gas deposits around the Spratlys.

Opposition Rep. Roilo Golez earlier called attention to an article in the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review criticizing the agreement as a “sell-out” on the part of the Philippines. The article was written by Barry Wain, a researcher in the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

Wain claimed that the agreement gave legitimacy to China’s claim to most of the South China Sea. He said the Philippines, being “militarily weak and lagging economically, has opted for Chinese favors at the expense of ASEAN political solidarity.”

He said the agreement violated the spirit of the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of the Conduct of Parties as it was concluded without consultation with other countries claiming the Spratlys. He noted that Vietnam initially objected to the agreement, forcing the Philippines and China to include it in the joint exploration project in 2005.

According to Golez, oil exploration companies have estimated that the Spratlys hold about 200 billion barrels of oil worth $20 trillion at present prices.

Meanwhile, the bill defining our territory to comply with UNCLOS deadline in May 2009 is hanging in limbo, paralyzed by an unsigned Chinese note received by the Philippine Embassy in Beijing.

UNCLOS contains mechanisms to aid in the settlement of the Spratlys conflicting claims.

Articles74 and 83 says that when there is disagreement concerning the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone (art74) or continental shelf (art83) the states must try to reach an agreement under art 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)

Parties to the Law of the Sea are obligated to accept arbitration of their maritime disputes under Part XV of the Convention.

Another non-violent method recently tried successfully is joint development, as the precedent set by Thailand and Malaysia for the joint development of natural resources in areas where their territorial waters overlap. Other approaches are the agreement between Germany and the Netherlands in the Ems-Dollart Treaty of 1960 for joint development of gas and oil reserves in the estuary of the Ems River, and the agreement between Japan and South Korea to jointly develop the continental shelf between the two countries.

If an amicable solution to the conflicting Spratlys and Paracels claims are not done, the Thucidides solution will result – the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.

Mischief on Mischief Reef, Part 1

Mischief on Mischief Reef, Part 1

The relentless persistence of the Senate hearings to uncover massive corruption bared by the National Broadband Network is now on the trail of the Chinese offer of liberal loans as bait for ambitious administration projects. Being bruited is an amount of $8 Billion, large enough to strike deep suspicion among political outsiders. One of the ongoing projects became a done deal allegedly with a string attached – a joint Phi-Sino oil exploration in the Spratlys Islands, which is now the focus of the next Senate probe.
Flashback to 1998 when I wrote an article titled Mischief on Mischief Reef excerpted below.
Mischief on Mischief Reef I
In early November of centennial year 1998, national newspapers bannered head- lines about another Sino invasion -- not the steady stream thru airports -- but by sea. According to the media, the Chinese are again causing mischief in their lake called the South China Sea on an atoll named Mischief Reef where tie Sinos have expanded their fisherman's barracks. The reef is part of the Spratly Island group (the Chinese call it Nansha) and one of the several claimed by the Philippines.
The hoopla stems from President Estrada's response to the intrusion, blurting out that he ordered a blockade which would block the entry and exit of the interlopers. As expected, the Foreign Affairs Secretary and the presidential spokesman quietly stepped forward to explain the meaning of the order as merely “intensified surveillance and monitoring” and that the international law doctrine of innocent passage will be respected. The officials went on to declare that there was no intent to assume a posture of confrontation and that we will conform to a policy of diplomacy to address the issue.
This sane course of action is certainly reassuring given the well known disparity of military strengths between ours and China.
Should we expect some support from ASEAN? Not with Malaysia's Mahatir peeved with Erap on the Anwar issue and the move to revive the Sabah claim. Not with Vietnam still licking the wounds inflicted by China when their Navies clashed over the disputed islands in 1998. And the other ASEAN states are engrossed in their own security problems.
How about good old U.S.A.? Not when this superpower is courting the vote of China, a fellow permanent member of the UN Security Council, on two hot raging issues --- the latest Iraqi defiance and the Serbia-NATO standoff. And our lukewarm handling of the VFA would certainly not invite support. In the eyes of America, the Mischief Reef matter would be scoffed at as just a storm in a teacup.

So it boils down to a one on one affair in the event of a confrontation. It is now apparent that our government has presumed the fisherman’s shelterto be of military nature, not the innocent structures the Chinese want us to believe. And this raises the chances of dangerous confrontation, as it could easily turn into a skirmish and exchange of gunfire by just one hothead with a nervous trigger finger on either side. Setting strict rules of engagement such as keeping approach limits by patrols, or of no-provocation orders would not ensure that unwanted incidents won’t occur.
During one of the TV newscasts of ABS-CBN on the Spratlys I was astonished to spot what looked like a familiar navy vessel, a minesweeper that was among the several patrol craft I commanded as a young naval officer. The venerable vessel was vintage World War II, a second-hand gift from the U.S. Navy to its poor protégé the Philippine Navy (PN). If this is one of the 13 patrol craft listed by ABS-CBN as part of the PN fleet, I can understand the dire need for modernization.
Next, I looked up the numbers on the opposing sides. These were the odds, circa 1995 (based on the book “The Military Balance1994-1995, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London*):
* CHINA
Total Armed Forces (PLA) --- 2,930,000 active
1,200,000 reserve
Navy: 260,000 men with 18 destroyers, 37 frigates, 370 patrol craft, 217 missile craft, 160 torpedo boats, 121 minesweepers/layers51 amphibious craft, 164 support craft, 25 bombers, 130 torpedo bombers, 600 fighter planes, 68 helicopters, 50 submarines, and scores of missiles and rockets including modified Exocet missiles (the weapon an Argentine plane used in the Falkland War to sink a British Destroyer), plus outposts in the Paracels and Spratlys.
Airforce: 470,000 men, 120 medium bombers (some nuclear capable), 350 light bombers, 500 FGAs, 4,000 fighter jets, 600 transport aircraft, 400 helicopters.
Strategic Missile Forces: 90,000 Strategic Rocket units, 14 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, 60 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (nuclear capability assumed).
The 1992 military budget of China was officially $6.8 Billion but that figure vastly understates real military spending because it does not include capital expenditures, research and development, and procurement of weapons. The budget is increased about 14% each year, supported by a phenomenal economic growth rate of 10% over the last decade or so. The economic boom and a $13 Billion annual trade surplus bolstered military shopping missions to places like former enemy Russia for tanks, ships, weapons and an aircraft carrier from Ukraine.

PHILIPPINES
Total Armed Forces --- 106,000 active
131,000 reserves
Navy: 23,000 men(including 8,500 Marines), one frigate (ex USS Cannon), 58 patrol craft, 11 support craft, 35 inshore craft, one Islander and 8 Defender aircraft. (Note: These figures are now split between the Navy and Coast Guard after the latter was demilitarized and transferred to the Department of Transportation and Communications. Three used patrol boats were bought in 1997 from Hong Kong at a cost of $12.3 million – ODG)
Airforce: 15,500 men, a squadron of 7F-5s, four squadrons COIN aircraft, three helicopter squadrons of Bell and Hueys (C-130s not listed)

Obviously, the disparity in forces does not encourage saber-rattling on our part and prudence urges a tactical advance to the rear.
Lately, Foreign Affairs Secretary Siason made public his assessment that China has a grand design to dominate the Pacific (reminiscent of Japan’s East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of World War II), although he did not give specifics and the basis for such a conclusion. Now comes a Congressman, a former Navy Captain and US Naval Academy graduate, claiming he has knowledge of a study published in a British Royal Navy paper that supports the view that the structures are the initial steps to a military take-over and de facto jurisdiction of the Spratlys.
The solon’s information, if true, lends credence to the grand design theory and coincides with the assessment in early 1990’s of Asia-watchers who studied the geopolitics of the region and finding China’s expansionary moves do show a pattern for a grand design. Tibet, HongKong, Paracels, all gobbled in the Dragon’s maw, and very soon, Macau. Maybe even Spratlys and Taiwan.
A Chinese law passed in February 25, 1992 spells out the Chinese concept of extended sovereignity, reasserting claims in the South China Sea. The Law described its “territorial sea and contiguous zones” claimed the Spratlys (Nansha), the Paracels (Xisha)the Pescadores (Penghu)which lies between China and Taiwan, Pratas bank (Zungsha), and surrounding waters and airspace, and stipulates that China reserves the right to use force to defend the areas. This clearly challenges UNCLOS which China has not ratified by August 1995.
In 1974 a Chinese naval force ejected a South Vietnamese garrison from the Paracel Islands some 400 km. south of the island province of Hainan, the southernmost point of China proper. Expanding further south, China then sunk 3 Vietnamese boats, killed 72 Vietnamese and took 6 islands in March 1988 in the Spratlys, about 400 km. south of the Paracels.
The Spratlys, a mix of islets, atolls and shoals, begin 402 km. off Southern Vietnam and end 169 km. north of Borneo. The area is believed to hold huge reserves of gas and oil, a factor in the territorial claims of the 6 remaining nations, (China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Philippines) France, Britain and Japan having dropped their claims long ago. China and Vietnam are presently drilling for gas and oil, and the Philippines is about to drill for gas. All claimants except Brunei maintain garrisons: Vietnam 20 islands, Philippines 8, Malaysia 3, Taiwan 1, China 6 plus.
Just how firm is our claim to justify the flexing of muscles (or rattling our balisongs, if you will) over territory that is almost constantly under water and in which only corals grow?
Note the carefully couched statements of Foreign Affairs Secretary Siason referring to the area as “within the exclusive economic zone” of the Philippines as defined by UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). But there seems to be a complication --- it appears we have yet to set our baselines.
In August 1996 an Australian professor and maritime expert broached the call for setting baselines. “The baselines will not determine or resolve any territorial disputes. So the Philippines can unilaterally declare the baselines because it is its right as it also claims Kalayaan Islands. I do think it is important if you finalize your baselines. As much as it is easier to criticize the Chinese over their drawn baselines in the Paracels, I urge you to make your archipelagic baselines within the rules.” He further stated the baselines can be drawn and not immediately including Sabah without prejudicing its claim on the territory.
But in February 1997, Secretary Siason warned that revising the country’s baselines to include the Spratly Islands would be a “dangerous move”, adding “unnecessary headaches would be created.” The warning was a riposte to the calls for baseline revision. To clinch his point, “you can … it is possible kung kaya mo. You can always draw the line, but do you have the resources to protect it?”
Still later, former Comelec Commissioner Haydee Yorac in her 1998 senatorial bid vowed to institute reforms in protecting the maritime interests of the country, explaining that the Philippines, an archipelagic state, “ has no clear policy about this. What is more alarming is the fact that we have not even established base points and base lines. So our maritime zones are open to challenges from neighboring countries, as in the case of the claims of other countries on the disputed Spratly Islands.”
And note what legal giant and Constitution expert J.C. Bernas says on national territory: … “In fact, you don’t establish jurisdiction over a piece of territory by claiming it in a solemnly enacted statute or even in the Constitution. Recognition of territorial rights is a matter of international law. Our Constitution and our statutes are municipal laws that bind only ourselves. Even a clear and unequivocal claim made in the Constitution or in statutes does not establish a rightthat other countries recognize. And a claim not universally recognized will always be precarious.”
Included in the opinion is an allusion to the metes and bounds of our territory defined by the 1898 Treaty of Paris between the U.S. and Spain at the conclusion of the Spanish-American war, in indirect reply to the grumbling over the loss of 230,000 square miles of “Treaty” territorial sea when we ratified UNCLOS and embraced the exclusive economic zone concept.
Asked to explain the activities at the structures, the Chinese ambassador said, “These are purely fishermen’s shelters undergoing repairs and rehabilitation.” Left unsaid was the dictum that possession is nine-tenths of the law, and that the shelters will be permanent (in their possession), even if we are naïve enough to accept the “share and develop” offer, making us tenants in a place we claim to be ours.
So, the frenzy in top level officialdom has not abated, stirred somewhat by a few sectors of media which use unfortunate language such as “the nation being on a war footing.”
The whole episode poses grim and pernicious ramifications. If it ever develops into a shooting, high intensity conflict, we could face the terrible aspect of seeing the cream of our youth, the ROTC, sent into battle ---as cannon fodder, an utterly unacceptable culmination of the mischief on Mischief Reef.

Naval Nostalgia

A series of maritime events takes my imagination on a nostalgic trip along memory (sea) lanes. First, a very dear friend, Dr Luis Tamayo, introduces me to his cousin, Valdemar, PN (ret), and brings him to our home for a visit. Then some late news of another joint Phil Navy-US Navy exercises in Zambales and La Union (my home province), followed by a whimsical harebrained scheme to send two Coast Guard vessels (tiny motorboats) to Lebanon to evacuate 30,000 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) employed as domestic helpers in Beirut, presumably at 300 persons per vessel trip.



In mid-August the Philippine and U.S. navies conducted joint training exercises, a regular program held under the RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty which aims to enhance operational coordination of the two navies.. This last brings back sentimental memories of youth and adventure. My participation in a similar event decades ago involved dozens of ships from both navies, mainly to teach naval tactics to the fledgling PN navy: fleet maneuvers, communications, command and control. To a junior officer, the novel experience was awesome and exhilarating, and so deeply imbedded into memory.



Just before graduation from Kings Point (USMMA), a Federal academy located in scenic Long Island, New York), all 20 Filipinos of class 53A were inducted into the Philippine Navy (PN) by a naval attaché (PN, Annapolis grad) from Washington D.C. The induction was more than an invitation; it was a mandate. Thus, my sea life resumed as an ensign in the PN. (My seafaring days as an adult began in year two of my maritime curriculum.)



My initiation to the sea, inevitable to people living in an archipelago, was in voyages as a child traveling to the island of Masbate where my parents worked as teachers. Many of my boyhood weekends were spent romping with friends on a beach or swimming in the pristine waters. Being a short walk from home, the beach was an enticing playground, clean, free, and friendly. I knew even at that tender age that the sea was also the source of the proteins and weeds served at mealtime, and the cause of motion sickness on a choppy crossing by boat to reach a faraway place named Masbate.

Not many beaches nowadays are clean and free, some even downright unfriendly (spoiled by reckless humans or ruined by fuel oil spilled from wayward tankers), and certainly not with pristine waters. But the sea could still be rough and choppy. And hopping from one island to the next takes a bit of planning – which rickety boat goes where, how seldom, what classes and costs of berthing, and sailing schedules, if any. Naturally, one’s fare budget determines whether the choice will be a fast ferry liner or a decrepit rust bucket.

Traffic on the sea lanes are as varied as their land-bound equivalents, tankers, passenger ferries, containerships, fishing boats, leisure craft, sneaky smugglers and sometimes a pirate speedboat. But unlike road traffic, the sea lanes have no paving or traffic signs. Instead, maritime vessels must follow certain conventions called Rules of the Road to avoid a collision.

Navigating in heavy sea traffic invokes the injunction that constant vigilance is the price of safety. Notwithstanding the aid of radar, avoidance of collision heavily depends on the alertness and judgment of the men on the bridge – the watch officer and lookouts – where the ship is controlled.

An actual collision occurred near Macajalar Bay of this city in early 1998 involving a ferry and a motorized banca. Reports culled from TV described the two vessels in a crossing situation. In such a case, the rules define a burdened vessel as one which has the other vessel on its starboard (rightside) bow and is forbidden to cross ahead of the other (privileged) vessel. Evasive action of the burdened vessel can take the form of slackening speed, stopping or reversing, or turning to starboard toward the other vessel’s stern. The privileged vessel is required to maintain course and speed.

Why then did the vessels collide? One of them or both defied the rules.

Records of marine protests (inquiries) of mishaps invariably indicate that the rules need no enhancement; they have stood the test of time. The records have clearly shown that when a vessel approaches another, one of three things will probably result: (1) both will obey the rules and will accordingly clear each other routinely, (2) either one will try to improve on the established rules with a system of his own and there will be a near collision, or (3) the novel technique, contrary to the rules, which will result in actual collision. The almost total correlation between disobedience of the rules and collision leads to the inescapable conclusion that the rules, if obeyed by both vessels, are practically collision proof.

Sea mishap records show that almost 90% are caused by the human factor. Safety of life at sea obviously depends on the competence of the ship’s crew. The skills of the officers and seamen are the result of good training in a maritime school and experience from a well-managed vessel.

At last count, there were about 200,000 Filipino seafarers working abroad (out of 450,000 registered seamen) earning roughly $2 billion annually. They are products of the 118 nautical schools scattered across the country. The diligence of these men helped keep the country financially afloat. (Seagoing OFWs today include landlubbers working in cruise ships mostly in hotel-related jobs.)

But dark clouds hover over the horizon. The quality of graduates have deteriorated; only nine out of the 118 schools (Cagayan Capitol College is one of them) could meet world standards set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO, a UN entity) of which the Philippines is a member. The revised IMO standards of training certification and watch keeping for seafarers require that evaluators of master mariners and seamen must be qualified and have marine expertise (“sealegs” in marine jargon).

The IMO has declared that the International Shipping Management (ISM) code is a mandatory requirement for the vessels of countries who have ratified and acceded to the Solas Convention. The code requires offshore shipping offices to consistently maintain structured identification documentation and implementation of key policies to insure management consistency and quality service. Recent awardees of ISM IMO are the WG&A group.

A national president of a seafarers federation voiced fear that the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) which is known to have no “sealegs” may be “incompetent” in issuing certification for qualified seafarers. This problem may have been resolved when the functions of the Coast Guard and Marina were redefined as a consequence of the finger pointing fiasco and aftermath of the Pearl of the Orient marine inquiry. A Department of Transportation and Communications order delineated the Marina as the policy-making agency for maritime safety while the coast Guard will enforce the rules.

Soon, foreign vessels will be allowed entry into our coastwise shipping trade, a liberization which could stimulate safety and service. This development may force non-compliant domestic shipping to apply the IMO standards.

Shipboard technology advances has changed some of seafaring traditions. Celestial navigation using sextants are nudged aside by the Global Positioning System, an electronic device linked to satellites that can fix a ship’s position accurately. Radiomen are being rendered redundant by the global maritime distress system, a device which has features that can be operated by any officer, and radio-telephony via satellite is making Morse code obsolete (well, not entirely; it is still part of an NTC test for voice radio). On some ships, collision prevention has been automated with computerized radar that can track vessels in the vicinity, give warning of any vessel on a collision course, and provide the appropriate evasive action.

Landlubbers speak the seaman’s language without realizing it. A modern office is equipped with bottled water in demijohns where thirsty people meet to exchange scuttlebutt. The word, which means gossip, came from seaman’s jargon and originally referred to the barrel that held drinking water. Sailors gathering around the barrel for a drink exchanged the latest rumors. The conversation itself eventually became the word scuttlebutt.

Persons on a skimpy budget try to “make ends meet”, (a common predicament of Ensigns in the PN) practiced by sailors of old when they tied together frayed ropes instead of buying new ropes. If you and others share a problem, you’re “all in the same boat”(a situation gripping the nursing candidates in the exam leak fiasco). When you want to understand something, you’re trying to “fathom” it, a word that to a seaman means the length of six feet on rope marked in fathoms and used to measure depth.

Toe the line

The space between each pair of deck planks in a wooden ship was filled with a packing material called "oakum" and then sealed with a mixture of pitch and tar. The result, from afar, was a series of parallel lines a half-foot or so apart, running the length of the deck. Once a week, as a rule, usually on Sunday, a warship's crew was ordered to fall in at quarters -- that is, each group of men into which the crew was divided would line up in formation in a given area of the deck. To insure a neat alignment of each row, the Sailors were directed to stand with their toes just touching a particular seam. Another use for these seams was punitive. The youngsters in a ship, be they ship's boys or student officers, might be required to stand with their toes just touching a designated seam for a length of time as punishment for some minor infraction of discipline, such as talking or fidgeting at the wrong time. A tough captain might require the miscreant to stand there, not talking to anyone, in fair weather or foul, for hours at a time. Hopefully, he would learn it was easier and more pleasant to conduct himself in the required manner rather than suffer the punishment. From these two uses of deck seams comes our cautionary word to obstreperous youngsters to "toe the line."

Finally, a sage advice to economizing travelers taking a sea voyage for the first time. One hour before boarding, take an anti-motion-sickness pill (Dramamine or Bonamine). Ginger is a slower-acting substitute. The remedy may allow enjoyment of the scenery – the dolphins, sailfish, green islands – without turning green and butterflies churning in the stomach. Bon Voyage.

But I digress.



My first year in the navy was not without excitement. My patrol boat (emphasis on the word boat) was a gift from the US Navy, a wooden minesweeper diverted from its way to retirement in the junk pile. But she could still chug along at a top clip of 12 knots, give or take a knot or two at flank speed.

Patrol coverage was along the waters bordering the islands of Indonesia and Borneo. As you might have guessed, the area included the notorious islands of Basilan and Jolo. At that time the infamous Abu Sayyaf bandits were not yet born, but another villain called Kamlon and his several hundred followers were creating mischief in his native Jolo island. Our boat was assigned to assist the army in containing the bandit group. At one point during the single-ship blockade of Jolo we ferried a platoon of troops for a beach landing near the rebel’s flank. This maneuver, of course, included the obligatory naval gunfire support to soften resistance, that consisted primarily of 20mm and 40 mm rapid fire but throwing in a shell or two from our 3-incher, just for effect.

After exhausting about half of our armory ammo, the CO determined that the enemy should by then be sufficiently chastised (who at 5 AM were not visible, or may not even be in the area). The troopers then boarded our wherry boat, a half-dozen at a time, and headed for shore, landing safely and unopposed. First light of day revealed the landing area with its pristine landscape unscathed. The exercise was not entirely wasted. We got some much-needed firing practice in the episode.



After the Kamlon campaign episode, it was back to dull patrolling duties. Luckily for the crew, the skipper was not just a seasoned patroller but also an imaginative one. The route was plotted to include places that are either scenic or unique, sites that would easily qualify as tourist spots and which would require closer scrutiny, officially of course. Places inspected include the Turtle islands and the visiting egg-laying mother turtles, the birds-nest cliffs and the fish-rich Malampaya bay of Palawan, Hibok-hibok volcano in Camiguin. In one southern Mindanao village we feasted on crabs the size of King crabs of Alaska and on lobsters. We even forayed into Sabah, Borneo to a cluster of huts called Sandakan (a fair-sized city today).

This somewhat carefree lifestyle ended when some biggies in the naval hierarchy decided to test my mettle by assignment as skipper albeit acting (to relieve vacationing COs.) but nevertheless given the endearing “old man” epithet by the crew. Sadly, the rank (and pay) was not adjusted along with the heavier burdens, and life continued to be a constant struggle to make ends meet.

At about this time I met and married Josie, and the ends would no longer meet. Not long thereafter, here come orders to prepare to proceed to Navy Post-Graduate School in Monterey, California. This urged a thorough review of my naval career and future. Decision time… Monterey would mean 4 more years tacked on to serve the Navy, and that would mean reaching the point of no return,— Navy up to retirement, a prospect that holds little appeal --- PN’s aging vessels and no replenishment agenda, and politics extending the time-in-grade (slow promotions) of officers. I decided to be a civilian, free to pursue opportunities, not a seadog drowning in deprivation.

I treasure this brief episode in my life and the souvenir (Military Merit medal) that came with it , but the nostalgia is somewhat spoiled by the realization of the distressing lack of progress in this branch of uniformed services. What little advances are visible are not in naval form but in its amphibious arm, the Marines, thanks to their American counterpart. But even this esprit-de-corps is being eroded by demoralization palpably demonstrated by “withdrawal of support” to the administration (the equivalent of the Brit sit-down strike). We may yet rue the day if this magnificent bunch of young men join the exodus and become OFWs, mercenaries in Iraq or other war zones.