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.

Smoking doesn't make you happy.

Smoking doesn't make you happy.

Smokers who claim that smoking is one of the few pleasures left to them should think again. Extensive research carried out by Dr Iain Lang at the Peninsula Medical School in England looked at the relationship between smoking and psychological wellbeing.

Said Dr. Lang: "We found no evidence to support the claim that smoking is associated with pleasure, either in people from lower socio-economic groups or in the general population." In short -- smoking doesn't make you happy.

Some countries set No Smoking Day on 12th March hoping to persuade smokers to quit as a patriotic gesture and sacrifice (by stopping production of harmful second-hand smoke). Here are some of the tips.

A Quit Smoking Diet?

Can what you eat help you give up smoking?

Yes, according to Duke University psychologist F. Joseph McClernon. Based at the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Research, McClernon “… kept hearing smokers say that certain foods and beverages made their cigarettes taste much better.” He began to wonder exactly which foods these were — and whether any foods made smoking a worse experience.”

Which, of course, got him thinking about the connection between foods and smoking. He enlisted 209 long term smokers (who smoked at least a pack a day for at least 21 years) and had them list the foods that seemed to enhance the smoking experience and the foods that seemed to worsened the smoking experience.

The results…

70% of the participants found that meat, alcohol, and caffeinated beverages appeared to make cigarettes taste better.

But for 45% of the participants, foods such as fruit, vegetables, dairy products, and beverages such as water, juice, and non caffeinated drinks appeared to make their cigarettes taste worse.

What this means…

So what do the smokers out there think?

Have you tried diet modification in your quit smoking campaign ?

Overlooked Reasons to Quit Smoking

If you need more incentive to quit smoking, here are some reasons that you may not know about.

You know smoking causes lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease, but you're still lighting up. To help you get on the wagon, following is a compiled list of little known ways your life can go up in smoke if you don't kick the habit.

From an increased risk of blindness to a faster decline in mental function, here are 10 compelling -- and often surprising -- reasons to stick to your commitment.

Alzheimer's Disease: Smoking Speeds Up Mental Decline

SIDS: Maternal Smoking Doubles Risk

Colic: Smoking Makes Babies Irritable, Too

An Increased Risk of Impotence

Blindness: Smoking Raises Risk of Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Genetically Vulnerable Smokers Increase Their Risk Even More

Snoring: Even Living With a Smoker Raises Risk

Acid Reflux: Heavy Smoking Linked to Heartburn

Breast Cancer: Active Smoking Plays Bigger Role Than Thought

If those top 10 reasons weren't enough to motivate you to quit smoking, keep this in mind:

Smoking is linked to certain colon cancers.

Smoking may increase the risk of depression in young people,

Some studies have linked smoking to thyroid disease.

How Cigarette Smoke Causes Cancer: Study Points To New Treatments, Safer Tobacco (adopted fromScienceDaily (Mar. 2008) —

Everyone has known for decades that that smoking can kill, but until now no one really understood how cigarette smoke causes healthy lung cells to become cancerous. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, show that hydrogen peroxide (or similar oxidants) in cigarette smoke is the culprit. This finding may help the tobacco industry develop "safer" cigarettes by eliminating such substances in the smoke, while giving medical researchers a new avenue to developing lung cancer treatments.

With the five-year survival rate for people with lung cancer at a dismally low 15.5 percent, the study will provide better insight into the identification of new therapeutic targets.

In the research study, researchers describe how they exposed different sets of human lung airway cells (in the laboratory) to cigarette smoke and hydrogen peroxide. After exposure, these cells were then incubated for one to two days. Then they, along with unexposed airway cells, were assessed for signs of cancer development. The cells exposed to cigarettes smoke and the cells exposed to hydrogen peroxide showed the same molecular signatures of cancer development, while the unexposed cells did not.

"Guns kill, bombs kill and cigarettes kill," said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "While biologists can't do much about the first two, studies like this will help in the fight against tobacco-related death and disease. These experiments not only pin-point new molecular targets for cancer treatment, but also identify culprits in cigarette smoke that eventually will do the smoker in."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States, resulting in more than 400,000 deaths per year or about 1 in 5 U.S. deaths overall. Smoking accounts for the vast majority of lung cancer deaths, causing 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths in men and about 80 percent in women. In 2000, a Surgeon General report revealed that tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemical compounds, with 43 being known carcinogens. Some of the 4,000 compounds result from chemicals added in processing to improve taste, increase burning times, and prolong shelf life.

This research is published in the March 2008 print issue of The FASEB Journal.

Certain Vitamin Supplements May Increase Lung Cancer Risk, Especially In Smokers

Vitamin supplements do not protect against lung cancer, according to a study of more than 77,000 vitamin users. In fact, some supplements may even increase the risk of developing it. A study of supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and folate did not show any evidence for a decreased risk of lung cancer, wrote the study's author "Indeed, increasing intake of supplemental vitamin E was associated with a slightly increased risk of lung cancer." he said.

Researchers selected a prospective cohort of 77,126 men and women between 50 and 76 years of age in the VITAL (VITamins And Lifestyle) study, and determined their rate of developing lung cancer over four years with respect to their current and past vitamin usage, smoking, and other demographic and medical characteristics.

Of the original cohort, 521 developed lung cancer, the expected rate for a low-risk cohort such as VITAL. But among those who developed lung cancer, in addition to the unsurprising associations with smoking history, family history, and age, there was a slight but significant association between use of supplemental vitamin E and lung cancer.

In contrast to the often assumed benefits or at least lack of harm, supplemental vitamin E was associated with a small increased risk of lung cancer. The increased risk was most prominent in current smokers.

The idea that vitamin supplements are healthy, or at the very least, do no harm, comes from the desire of many people to mimic the benefits of a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables with a convenient pill. However, fruits contain not only vitamins but also many hundreds of other phytochemical compounds whose functions are not well understood.

The World Cancer Research Fund and the American Cancer Society recommend two servings of fruit each day, based on a study that previously found a 20 percent increase in cancer risk among people who ate the least amount of fruit. This recommendation would likely lead to a reduced risk for lung cancer, as well as reduced risk of several other cancers and cardiovascular disease However, any benefit to the population of smokers from increasing fruit intake to reduce cancer risk by 20 percent would be more than offset if even a small proportion of smokers decided to continue tobacco use in favor of such a diet change.

These findings have broad public health implications, given the large population of current and former smokers and the widespread use of vitamin supplements. Future studies may focus on other components of fruits and vegetables that may explain the decreased risk [of cancer] that has been associated with fruits and vegetables.

Big brains payrolled by Big Tobacco

16 February 2008

Jim Giles writing in Magazine issue 2643:

IT IS well known that when the dangers of smoking became increasingly obvious in the 1950s, tobacco companies funded scientific research aimed at downplaying the risks. Now, a little-known strand of that campaign, aimed at giving an intellectual gloss to pro-smoking arguments, has been detailed for the first time.

In an attempt to win hearts and minds, the tobacco companies bankrolled a network of economists, philosophers and sociologists. Documents newly scrutinized by academics reveal that members of the network generated extensive media coverage and numerous academic articles - with almost no mention that the work had been paid for by cigarette manufacturers.

The perverse prosperity of the tobacco industry

Incredibly, the financial health of tobacco companies continues to improve as the physical health of its customers continues to decline. Last week, analysts at the bank, J P Morgan, reported that tobacco had consistently outperformed the US and European market since 1973 and that they saw no reason for this trend to change. And this despite all the assaults against the tobacco industry over the past few decades: first, lawsuits and then the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), WHO's first treaty, which was adopted in 2005 and has been signed by 168 countries to date.

Such attacks on the industry continue thick and fast. In Florida, US tobacco companies were deluged with thousands of new lawsuits before the deadline imposed by the Florida Supreme Court for filing individual claims after last year's decision to overturn a US$145 billion class action punitive award. And the Nigerian Government is currently suing three tobacco companies—British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, and International Tobacco—for $44 billion after accusing them of deliberately promoting smoking to young Nigerians.

The Lancet Chronic Diseases Series showed that 5·5 million deaths could be avoided in 23 countries if the four elements of the FCTC—increased taxes on tobacco products; enforcement of smoke-free work places; packaging, labels, and public awareness campaigns about the health risks of smoking; and a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising—were implemented.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has taken a stand against investing in tobacco companies, describing such enterprises as “egregious”. Other investors should follow their example. And WHO should make better use of the most effective weapon it has against the tobacco industry—the FCTC. Countries that have not signed and ratified the FCTC, such as America and Italy, should do so and all member states should make the implementation of the four key elements of the FCTC an urgent priority. Tobacco companies must not be allowed to continue to profit from the massive amount of mortality, morbidity, and misery they cause. We look forward to the time when J P Morgan advises investors to “sell, sell, sell” The Lancet 26 January 2008

Teaming up for tobacco control

Last week, two billionaires—Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg—announced their latest plan for spending some of their vast fortunes. The pair, through their respective charitable organisations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, will contribute a combined total of US$500 million to global tobacco-control programmes.

This is not the first time that Bloomberg, who led New York City's successful anti-smoking legislation in 2002, has contributed his own money to anti-tobacco efforts. In 2005, he set up Bloomberg's Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use with $125 million, and his foundation helped fund WHO's Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008. That report culminated in the MPOWER package, a group of evidence-based strategies for tobacco control. (The acronym stands for: Monitor tobacco use and policies; Protect people from second-hand smoke; Offer help to quit; Warn about the dangers of tobacco; Enforce bans on advertising, promotion, and tobacco company sponsorship; and Raise taxes on tobacco products.) Bloomberg will now make a further donation of $250 million, to be used over 4 years. The Gates' contribution is $125 million over 5 years, of which $24 million is designated as a grant to the Bloomberg Initiative. These investments are modest when set against the net worth of the two funders, but the amount vastly exceeds what is now being spent on tobacco control in low-income and middle-income countries. According to the 2008 WHO report, such spending comes to less than half a penny per person per year—against tobacco tax revenues of nearly $66 million. Read more ...

THE NOSE KNOWS

THE NOSE KNOWS

The stinking fuss about stench in two city barangays (formerly barrio, in Spanish) reminds me of an anecdotal court case whose outcome swung on the testimony of an expert witness. The prosecution witness had a reputed ability to distinguish odors of a wide range of chemicals and substances. He was to identify and pinpoint the source of the foul and obnoxious odors permeating a certain locality.

The wily defense team neutralized the expert’s testimony with simple cunning. Asked to identify two common liquids contained in separate receptacles, the expert sniffed the first substance proffered and promptly identified it as gasoline, but thereafter failed to identify the second. The defense had deadened his sense of smell with the first whiff. Chicanery may win court cases, but firms polluting the air with repulsive vapors emanating from putrid wastes and effluents to save costs cannot mask or neutralize the wafting stink.

Household deodorants being marketed do not really remove odors as ads imply, but merely mask the unwanted odor with a stronger aroma. There are three basic ways to get rid of undesirable odors: masking them with stronger scents, such as the ubiquitous lemon and pine fragrances; chemically dissolving or absorbing them with activated charcoal, baking soda or silica gel; and numbing out the nose. In the past, air-freshener products in the last category used formaldehyde or its solid version, paraformaldehyde, which is known as both poisonous and carcinogenic. The Monsanto company later developed a somewhat less lethal nasal anesthetic (the precise formulation is secret), which has since been incorporated into some air-fresheners along with the usual masking fragrances.

Some firms deny making use of a nasal anesthetic, saying that their products employ a combination of masking fragrances and odor counteractants which is curiously, the similar-sounding term malodor counteractant used in scientific journals, a code word for nasal anesthetic.

SENSE OF SMELL

The sense of smell is a potent means of animal communication. Many animal species emit smell signals called pheromones for luring mates, marking territory, deceiving enemies, or detecting prey and predators.

Compared to animals, humans are poor sniffers. The rabbit has 100 million cells in its nose used for smelling, and German shepherd dogs have 200 million, 44 times the number that humans possess. The intense sniffing ability of dogs (canines or its militarized homophone K-9) is employed by police to sniff and detect contraband drugs and explosives or track fugitives or lost children. A late news item carried the story of Scooby, an ace sniffer dog about to retire. The 7-year-old Labrador was so successful that drug dealers took out a contract on his life and that of his owner.

Late news (March 2008): Wine Taster's Nose Insured for Millions. His schnoz is not to be sniffed at. The nose of leading European winemaker and taster Ilja Gort has been insured for euro5 million ($8 million), Lloyd's of London said. Gort, 47, said his nose is essential for him to produce top quality wines at his Chateau de la Garde vineyard in the famous Bordeaux region of France, so he got it insured. The custom-made policy covers Gort for the loss of either his nose or his sense of smell and has some unusual conditions.

The insurance contract includes a list of what Gort considers "old-fashioned rules" to protect his nose. The Dutchman is not allowed to ride a motorcycle or be a boxer, knife thrower's assistant or a fire-breather. "I may not fight against Mike Tyson," Gort said.

To humans, a chemical compound to possess an odor must pass into the nasal cavity, directly above which are olfactory bulbs with projecting hair (tiny nerve fibers) that receive smell impulses and relay them to the brain. The exact mechanism is not known. One theory is that the aromatic molecules dissolve in the fluid of the cavity lining and bathe the sensory cells. Another is that gas comes into direct contact with the sub-microscopic cell hairs that penetrate the mucous layer.

The ability to smell a particular substance depends on the concentration of its presence in the air. Higher temperatures and moisture intensifies the smell. Thresholds of detection for different substances vary. For example, expressed in milligrams per thousand cubic meters, for a large room of 35,000 cubic feet in volume are:

feces (skatole) is 0.0004,

rotten cabbage (mercaptan) is 0.04,

rancid butter (butyric acid) is 1.0.

Malodorous mercaptan, considered the worst odor ever compounded, was at one time added to cooking gas to give warning of dangerous leaks. This practice was discontinued when odorous liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in cylinders was marketed.

The paucity of odor words in the vocabulary of most languages is obvious when attempting to describe a scent. A redolent thing assumes the bouquet of a flower or fruit, such as jasmine, rose, orange, lemon, apple, vanilla, and vulgar terms for substances reeking obnoxious odors: rotten egg, fishy, flatus.

Though many aromas are described in terms of fruit scent, there is one fruit that defies description with widely divergent and passionate views expressed, ranging from highly appreciative to deep disgust. The durian fruit that grows in Southeast Asia’s equatorial belt, (the Sulu archipelago in the Philippines) has a flavor and aroma that elicits the full spectrum of odor: cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, pig-shit, turpentine and onions garnished with a gym sock, French custard passed through a sewer. These are the kind words. The aroma of the fruit is so powerful it is forbidden in tourist areas and in public transport of many countries.

Odors often attain meanings that noses cannot sense. Fishy means an article or action that is questionable or suspicious. Stink is a public outcry over something offensive. And if something “stinks to high heavens”, the scope of suspicion becomes enormous, blatant, and flagrant.

CHEMISTRY MAGIC

Modern chemistry has made great strides in two fields affecting human lives: in food flavors and in perfumes and aromatics. Analysis of chemical components of the aromatics in foods and botanical fragrances enabled chemists to synthesize chemicals mimicking the scent of practically all flavors and fragrances.

In food labs, essential oils of various foods can be duplicated – alcohols (menthol), aldehydes (cinnamon), esters (lavender), ethers (aniseed), ketones (dill), phenols (cloves). These synthetics are now routinely added to natural products as blend or augmentation, and even to replace entirely as imitation.

The other field of fragrance magic is in perfumes, a word derived from Latin per fumus (through smoke). If wild animals have their pheromones, sophisticated man, or more aptly, alluring woman, has perfume as lure.

The art of perfumery is traced as far back as the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Its history mentions the scents of Cleopatra, the frankincense and myrrh of the three Magi bringing gifts to the babe in Bethlehem, and both Napoleon and Josephine are known fanciers.

The perfume business has spread to practically all countries as ingredient suppliers or as users of colognes and eau de toilette. A good perfume is said to have 10 to 50 ingredients blended from natural oils, synthetics (aromatic chemicals), and fixatives to bind the mixture. Animal fixatives, whose purpose is to slow down the evaporation of the more volatile oils, includes ambergris from whales, musk from musk deer and civet from wildcats. The fragrance of ylang-ylang is the Philippine contribution, said to be an ingredient of renowned perfumes made by Yves St. Laurent.

There are five standard methods of capturing essences from nature: distillation, expression, maceration, enfleurage, and volatile solvents process. But there are fragrances such as the lily and lilac that cannot successfully be made to yield their natural oils. Modern chemistry intervened, first probing the composition of natural fragrances and eventually compounding substances resembling those of nature. One such chemical was used in a popular brand: Chanel no. 5.

The creation of a good perfume is finally the result of the artistry of a master perfumer blending by trial and error for as long as a year, and adding such ethereal qualities as appeal, taste, originality, and theme.

An amusing story was in the news recently. A cheap imitation fragrance named Viagra, a concoction of ingredients that even its owner does not know, has been sued by the makers of the popular drug with that patented name. Some people just do not accept the saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Despite the huge market of fragrances in the food and perfume fields, they share a miniscule one-fifth of total manufacture. Most are used to scent consumer goods such as medicinal ointments and unguents, detergents, and even cars to provide the illusion of freshness.

AROMATHERAPY

Aromatherapy is the practice of using volatile plant oils, including essential oils, for psychological and physical well-being. Perfume oils are not the same as essential oils. Perfume oils and fragrances contain chemicals that do not provide the claimed therapeutic benefits of essential oils.

The modes of application of aromatherapy, predominantly topical applications for general massage, baths, compresses, therapeutic skin care, but also include aerial diffusion for environmental or aerial disinfection, direct inhalation for respiratory disinfection, decongestion, expectoration as well as psychological effects, and

oral, rectal, vaginal interfaces for infection, congestion, parasites, perfumery for body fragrancing, anointments

In the English-speaking world, practitioners tend to emphasize the use of oils in massage, and aromatherapy tends to be regarded as a complementary modality at best and a pseudoscientific fraud at worst.

One of the most comprehensive investigations done to date on aromatherapy failed to show any improvement in either immune status, wound healing or pain control among people exposed to two often-touted scents. While one of two popular aromas touted by alternative medicine practitioners – lemon – (also the favored scent for dishwashing liquid soap and deodorants) did appear to enhance moods positively among study subjects, the other – lavender – had no effect on reported mood, based on three psychological tests.

Neither lemon nor lavender showed any enhancement of the subjects’ immune status, nor did the compounds mitigate either pain or stress, based on a host of biochemical markers.

DOWNWIND OF SKATOLE

A favorite expletive of General “Bull” Schwarkoff (B.S.) of desert Storm fame was “bovine scatology”, abbreviated B.S. (commonly known as bullshit). His use of the term was military parlance, not in reference to odors. But whosoever gets downwind of skatole will surely get the urge to use an equally expressive civilian expression.

I once had a lively discussion with an agent of a food company who was trying to persuade our neighborhood to allow his company to set up shop nearby, on a lot that encroached into an area declared as a residential zone. His plea was based on the non-pollutive quality of the product (a food item) and the unobtrusive nature of the processing (repackaging).

The attempt to dialog was in itself extraordinary, in contrast to the habitual arrogance of firms contemptuous of community sensitivities. After his spiel, I asked a pointed question: if the product is organic and will therefore spoil, and spillage is unavoidable, what assurance can the company give that the sanitation and cleanup procedures will prevent putrification, considering the lack of a nearby public sewer for dumping their waste water? He has not returned with an answer.

The dialog may have averted a potential incompatibility conflict and discord similar to the furor caused in Barangays Gusa and Tablon. It was also a sign that public displeasure over effluvia has made business firms aware that they can no longer thumb their noses at public feelings. For whenever there is aroma waft in the air, be it from dung or lady fair, the nose knows.