Rice is life

Rice is life

The UN-backed Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched the International Year of Rice in 2004 to address a major global problem: Increased, sustainable rice production as key to global food security. Rice is the world's most popular food, a symbol of cultural identity and global unity. It shapes religious observances, festivals, customs, cuisine and celebrations. Yet all is not well in the world of rice. Growth in rice yields is slowing, and is already falling behind population growth. Most rice farmers are poor, but national policies often favor the consumer and export market.

The year's theme -- "Rice is life" -- reflects the importance of rice as a primary food source, and is drawn from an understanding that rice-based systems are essential for food security, poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods.

Rice is the staple food for over half of the world's population and FAO projections show that by 2030, total demand for rice will be 38 per cent higher than the annual amounts produced between 1997 and 1999. In order to meet future demand, new methodologies and production technologies are necessary because land and water resources are under threat.

Because rice does not contain all the elements necessary for a balanced diet, a key aspect of the International Year of the Rice is to encourage rice producers to intensify the rice production system and fully exploit their capacity to raise fish and livestock.

Rice in numbers

Rice is cultivated in 113 countries -- the staple food for over half the world's population.

Rice provides 27 percent of dietary energy supply and 20 percent of dietary protein intake in the developing world. Rice cultivation is the principal activity and source of income for about 100 million households in Asia and Africa.

Of the 840 million people suffering from chronic hunger, over 50 percent live in areas dependent on rice production for food, income and employment. About four-fifths of the world's rice is produced by small-scale farmers and is consumed locally.

Rice: The issues

To meet the food needs of the world's rapidly expanding population, rice-producing countries, most especially the Philippines who have attained the dubious distinction of the top rice importer, must address a range of issues.

Production

Since the 1970s, demand for rice has been met due to high-yielding varieties and improved production methods. Irrigation was key -- during the green revolution irrigated area grew by 4 to 5 million hectares per year. Today, as populations grow, land and water resources for rice production are diminishing.

Environment

Excessive use of pesticides in rice farming pollutes water and creates health hazards. Intensive irrigation can cause salinization and water logging. Flooded rice is a major source of methane emission while the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers produces nitrous oxide -- both are greenhouse gases linked to global warming. One solution is integrated pest and crop management, which teaches farmers to monitor the pests in their fields and adopt practices that reduce the need for pesticides.



Poverty

Small-scale rice farmers may never be rich, but they too can benefit from improved technologies and methods, if the improvements are designed with small-scale needs in mind. Double-cropping with tomatoes or cabbage, for example, can increase income. Farmers have less access to credit, farm inputs, marketing facilities and extension services - a missed opportunity to boost production and reduce poverty. National policies often favor the consumer instead of being pro-poor. Increased rice production also means more jobs in support sectors such as milling, marketing and trading.



Nutrition

In addition to being a source of energy, rice provides thiamine, riboflavin and niacin and can be improved by using traditional selective plant breeding and by simply omitting the polishing process that removes the bran (brown rice.).



Biotechnology

Biotechnology (genetic engineering) can help increase yields and reduce the need for inputs. But there are human and environmental safety concerns, and benefits should flow not only to multinational companies but also to farmers.

Although the use of new, high-yielding varieties instead of traditional rice varieties brought huge gains in yield, the planting of a single variety over large areas year after year may compromise genetic resistance to pests. Research needs to be supported to continue the search for new, more pest-resistant varieties. The rice genome was recently mapped fully and more effective breeding is expected.



Hybrid technology

High-yielding rice varieties arguably take credit for much of the remarkable gain in rice production over the past 35 years. Yet since 1966, yields have been stagnant. Unfortunately, the cost of hybrid seed production is four to five times higher than normal seeds - out of reach for most poor farmers. The local experience of hybrids did not encourage widespread use.



After the harvest

A significant portion is lost after harvesting by hand harvesting and threshing, which are still common, rudimentary grain drying prevails and rice is poorly stored. Often 10 to 37 percent of the harvest is lost, especially in the rainy season. Improved silos, and new varieties more tolerant to delayed harvesting would help.

UN’s warning

In early 2008, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned in a March 12 article in the Washington Post that the world was “facing a perfect storm of new challenges.”

He pointed to the prices of wheat, corn and rice soaring to historic highs of up to 50 percent or more in the past six months and cereal stocks dropping to record lows. Food riots had erupted from West Africa to South Asia.

“In the here and now, we must help the hungry hit by rising food prices. That means, for starters, recognizing the urgency of the crisis—and acting,” said Ban.

Governments of several food-growing countries, worried about domestic shortages, have imposed export curbs, spooking markets at a time when world inventories are down sharply.

The Lancet echo

The era of cheap food is over. In the past year, the cost of wheat has risen by 130%, rice by 120%, with corn and soya not far behind. As a result, millions of people are starving and at least 100 million more people will be pushed further into poverty. Food, the fundamental determinant of health, is unaffordable to an increasing proportion of the world's population. As usual, the poorest are affected the most, with those living in absolute poverty—less than US$1 a day—surviving on just one meal a day if they are lucky. And since the International Fund for Agricultural Development has estimated that the number of food-insecure people in the world will rise by 16 million for every percentage increase in the prices of staple foods, this situation is likely to get worse. The target of MDG 1—to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger—is in reverse.

There are many contributing factors to the current crisis. The world will have 3 billion more mouths to feed by 2050. Emerging economies are not only eating more, but eating more meat. (It can take up to 9 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of meat.) Crop yields in developing countries have fallen dramatically with diminishing returns for at least a decade. Climate change has disrupted crop growth and water distribution. After the collapse of the US housing market, investors are ploughing trillions of dollars into commodities, such as food and raw materials, resulting in a “commodities super-cycle” where commodity price inflation feeds on itself leading to hugely inflated prices. Global trade distortions, where subsidized produce from rich countries is dumped on the markets of poorer ones, have wrecked the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and decreased local food production. But one of the largest contributors to the crisis is the rise of biofuels—in which potential food crops are burned as fuel in car engines—a situation that the UN Special Rapporteur for the right to food, Jean Ziegler, has called “a crime against humanity”.

Biofuels once perceived as the green alternative to fuel have recently been discredited. After the agricultural displacement effects of these fuels are taken into account, emissions from biofuels are many times worse than those from fossil fuels. Yet in the drive to make the USA self-sustaining for fuel production, massive ethanol subsidies and millions of acres of American corn have led to a boom in biofuels. American cars now burn enough corn to cover the import needs of 82 food-deficit countries. But thanks to a backlash against biofuels in Europe, the European Union, once committed to a 10% biofuel target by 2020, is now sensibly rethinking its position.

Drop export restrictions

The surfeit of worrisome news induced some worry wrinkles on Pinoy officialdom. The Philippines is now the world’s top importer of rice.

NFA Administrator Jessup Navarro, in a briefing he gave to a House panel on the country’s rice situation, said that the NFA had only been able to buy 1 percent of the local market production, but there was neither a sense of urgency evident in the presentation nor did it ring alarm bells, says Rep. Carlos Padilla of Nueva Vizcaya. The NFA was making the usual justification for its prolonged existence, Padilla says.

Traders were puzzled and obviously unaware of a food problem of global proportions.

For the Filipino rice traders, it was business as usual, dismissing threats of shortfalls.

They say that unscrupulous elements in the state-owned NFA were obviously out to make money by faking a rice shortage, thereby jacking up the price of the commodity.

There are also a number of ways to make money out of the situation, mainly hoarding rice bought from the NFA at subsidized rate to be sold when the prices soar.

If you have the right connections, it is easy says a trader. Interviews with traders conducted by one paper said they could obtain a cavan (40 kilos) of rice from the NFA at P862, pay P100 to the NFA connection, for a total acquisition price of P962. The rice is then put on a grader to segregate the broken rice, then rebagged and sold at double the acquisition price.

Citing a study of the Department of Finance last year, Angara says the NFA has accumulated P111 billion in debts and this is likely to balloon unless the country is able to address a looming rice shortage. "If we let go of the NFA and give it full rein subsidizing and importing rice, then we will have a bottomless pit that will consume so much of our taxpayers' money," Angara says.

The NFA was originally called the National Grains Authority formed under one of the first decrees issued by President Ferdinand Marcos shortly after he declared martial law in September 1972. NFA was tasked to ensure the growth of the grains industry – rice, corn, feed grains. Control of rice and other grains was deregulated subsequently and NFA concentrated solely in ensuring an adequate supply of rice at affordable prices.

ADB wants NFA phased out

"The targeted safety net programs will ensure that the remaining subsidized rice programs are reserved for the poor, without depressing farmgate prices," the ADB report said. "The government will retain the regulatory function of maintaining a maximum 30-day buffer stock (on 1 July of each year) to supplement the stocks of paddy farmers and private traders during the traditional lean season and guard against price volatility due to natural calamities. Agricultural scientists who did the study say that even in that basic role, the NFA had failed.

Blueprint for food security

REPUBLIC Act 8435, otherwise known as the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), aims to strengthen the agriculture and fishery sectors through modernization, greater participation of small-holders (or small stakeholders), food security and food self-sufficiency, private sector participation and people empowerment.

The program envisions a modernized and productive agriculture and fishery sector, being able to provide food at prices affordable to all, especially the marginalized sectors, which will eventually be empowered as the benefit from responsive support services provided them.

The immediate concern is to stimulate direct investments in support of the following: protection and development of watersheds; proper management of agricultural land and water resources; establishments and rehabilitation of irrigation systems; providing marginalized sectors preferential access to productive assets; and providing other essential measures and support services. Providing affordable, available, adequate and accessible food supplies at all times is paramount.

People empowerment will strengthen the partnership of the agriculture department with local institutions, particularly LGUs and non-government organizations and people's organizations (NGOs and POs) and the private sector, a strategic move in improving the country's agricultural productivity and food security.

Meanwhile the National Foods Authority (NFA), by April 2008, is releasing 33,100 metric tons of subsidized rice for daily consumption, but the queues get longer and more jittery as import sources dry up.

Agriculture Undersecretary Jesus Emmanuel Paras, for his part, cited several causes of unabated price increases of rice, one of which was the increasing price in the world market. He disclosed that in 2006 the price of rice was $240 per ton but has tripled by the first quarter of 2008 to $885 per ton. He also blamed the non-release of the budget for Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) intended to fund the irrigation system in the country.

According to Paras, under the AFMA, a P6 billion budget every year was allocated for irrigation however, he said not a single centavo was released, which explains why irrigation remains a problem.

Sen. Pia Cayetano joined the clamor in the Senate for a probe on the rice crisis, saying over the Lenten break she reviewed the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act which included policies to modernize, to shift from basic to technologically based farming, to be self-sufficient. What happened to that, she asked rhetorically. We passed this law 10 years ago, and I would like the resolution to include our oversight function to look into what happened to the implementation of this law. In fact it’s also tied into my committee on environment because this law also states that watershed should be preserved as long as DENR and the Department of Agriculture declare that it is needed for irrigation purposes, she said. (More on water here and here.)

The Philippines’ massive purchases of rice at sharply increased prices from its neighbors are creating a fast-buck opportunity for traders in Indonesia, where prices are controlled, to smuggle the commodity out through Singapore for eventual sale in the Philippines.

Rice in government-controlled storage in Indonesia sells for US$436.80 per ton at a time when the Philippine government and rice traders are offering up to US$1,000 per ton in Vietnam and Thailand. The skyrocketing rice price and the attendant smuggling opportunities are generating political concerns in both countries, with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week ordering government officials to prevent rice smuggling to other countries.

A top political source in Jakarta last week said the government is increasingly worried that rising rice prices and potential shortages could cause political unrest. “This is rice, and that means trouble if it goes wrong,” said the source. Yudhoyono has also sent a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urging him to take measures to ease speculation in commodity markets.

The strategy and the threats to self sufficiency

PGMA has given a new name to the AFMA law, or so it seems. The presidential program called FIELDS face questions coming from concerned groups, Centro Saka among them, alarmed over the aggressive promotion of hybrid rice. Centro Saka is a policy research and advocacy non-government organization, the secretariat to the National Rice Farmers Council, a loose coalition of small farmers nationwide organization formed in 2003.

FIELDS stands for Fertilizers, Irrigation and other infrastructure, Extension and education, Loans, dryers and post-harvest facilities and Seeds. But questions regarding the soundness of some of these solutions have to be raised.

Increasing irrigated hectares requires more sources of impounded water to offset the demand of population center needs. Untrammeled population fertility will intensify the competition for water. Innovative concepts, radical if you will, must be applied to address funding and other obstacles: construct mini-dams to impound water for multi-purpose use – sanitation, irrigation, power generation with mini-generators. The concept averts problems of big dams (rights of way, power transmission losses, more)

No to FIELDS of hybrid seeds

While the multi-billion additional funding for rice and several other crops is a welcome development, Centro Saka disagrees with how the government plans to spend it. The FIELDS package shows that the government intends to increase the hectarage devoted to hybrid rice production, with an allocation of P2.7 billion until 2010.

“We find this difficult to understand given the poor performance of the hybrid rice program and the many issues that have been raised against it over the years,” said Centro Saka executive director Omi Royandoyan and National Rice Farmers Council president Jimmy Tadeo.

Centro Saka says that as it is currently designed, the P43.7-billion package of intervention measures will merely perpetuate the misguided strategies that have turned the Philippines into the world’s biggest rice importer. In subsidizing hybrid rice, the Philippines would be subsidizing big seed companies like SL-Agrictech, including multinationals like Bayer and Monsanto, when the money could be used to support our own rice farmers. The design of the FIELDS interventions will actually make the rice program dependent on private companies with no accountability to the public.

Centro Saka says it straight: “Equally disturbing is hybrid rice’s heavy reliance on chemical-based inputs to reach optimum yields. With the skyrocketing prices of inorganic fertilizers which now stand at P1,700, hybrid rice production will only force rice farmers deeper into indebtedness, even as the big fertilizer companies reap windfalls of profit. All of this, plus the damage to the environment that chemical-based farming, as shown in numerous studies, will certainly cause.”

When will we ever learn? Centro Saka asks. The present crisis is clear evidence that the old strategy of putting all eggs in one basket, i.e., dumping the lion’s share of resources into the expensive and flawed hybrid rice program was a huge mistake. In fact, Centro Saka adds, the contribution of the hybrid rice, which has received billions of pesos in government support, pales in comparison with the over 50 percent contribution of good seeds which have been receiving practically no support from government. And yet there is all this talk of increasing funding for rice hybridization.

The government’s only rationale for insisting on hybrid rice is the supposed higher yield advantage when compared with traditional and other inbred varieties. But this is not really the case. In the field, farmer-selected and bred seeds have been shown to be comparative even superior to hybrid rice which has an average yield of less than 7 metric tons per hectare.

Read this: “According to some studies, yields from good seeds and certified seeds can reach a maximum of 9 metric tons per hectare and 10 metric tons per hectare, respectively. Using the latest rice hectarage of 4,272,000 hectares, we can assume that the country can produce as much as 38,448,000 million metric tons of ‘palay’ [rice before milling], or 29,904,000 metric tons of milled rice using only good seeds. This is even assuming a low milling recovery of only 60 percent.”

Here’s more: “Actual field experience with farmer developed varieties also show that yields of up to 7 metric tons per hectare are achievable using organic farming practices. This compares favorably to the less than 6 metric tons per hectare average yield for hybrid rice. Rice farmers who employed the system of rice intensification managed to produce yields reaching as high as 9 metric tons per hectare. Moreover, the small rice farmers have been reporting milling recovery rates of 70 percent which is much higher than that registered by hybrid rice. What is even more notable is that the small rice farmers were able to achieve this level of production without government support. Strangely, government has not tapped the expertise of these organic rice farmers.”

So Centro Saka argues that by simply providing farmers with good quality seeds, specifically the traditional and farmer-developed varieties, promoting organic rice farming and constructing additional irrigation facilities, government could set the country on the road to self-sufficiency in food production. So it is best for government to abandon its current policy of relying on hybrid rice and importing rice as solutions to the food crisis. Instead, government should pursue the implementation of the Rice Master Plan that the small rice farmers have long been advocating.

That’s more than just food for thought.

HHybrid rice blog Philippines: Who's really benefiting from hybrid rice subsidies?

Subsidies have always been the lifeblood of the hybrid rice industry. It's the one constant within the otherwise varied experiences of countries that have adopted hybrid rice. The PR machine might help boost sales of seeds and chemical inputs but its the subsidies that are really needed to get farmers planting hybrid rice in their fields. Take away these subsidies and the hectarage soon starts shrinking, be that in China where it's largely grown, India where its struggling to make headway, or Indonesia where the government is pursuing an ambitious revival. Governments come up with all sorts of subsidy schemes, many of them quite creative, in order to develop, commercialize and promote the use of rice hybrids. The Philippines is no exception.



Back in 2001, under the government's Hybrid Rice Commercialization Program (HRCP) - then attached to the Office of the President but later passed on to the Philippine Rice Institute (Philrice) of the Department of Agriculture – participating farmers received subsidized seeds and fertilizers at discounted rates. They also benefited from guaranteed crop insurance and enhanced production loans. It was a neat package that naturally attracted many capital-poor farmers.



For some of these farmers, the rice hybrids did increase yields, but for many, the crop failed. Reports flooded in of standing crops not forming any grain and increased incidences of destructive pests. It was a disaster that the government refused to neither acknowledge nor address. Instead it beefed up its hybrid rice promotion strategy in the media (tapping groups like the Philippine Science Journalists Association) and directed its PR department to focus on a few, often exaggerated, 'success stories'. New ways to extend its subsidies were devised (e.g. the National Food Authority putting priority on buying hybrid rice instead of inbred or traditional varieties) to keep hybrid rice production from sinking. Few farmers ended up profiting from this largess; rather the money flowed into the pockets of the rural banks and private loan institutions, the suppliers of machineries, the contractors of post-harvest facilities, and most importantly, the agro-chemical and seeds companies.



Private seed companies are the big beneficiaries of the hybrid rice program. Because of the subsidies, they get a market that they'd otherwise never have. Under the Philippines program farmers only pay half the price of the seeds and the government covers the rest, while the companies receive their money in full. Moreover, while in the beginning there was some 'healthy' competition among up to seven seed companies, including Pioneer, Bayer, some local companies, farmers cooperatives, and the government's own rice institute, soon most of the subsidies on seeds were channeled to just one company - SL Agritech.



SL Agritech, a somewhat mysterious private tie-up between Filipino, Chinese and Singapore investors, offered a much below-market price for its seeds combined with a big PR campaign. By 2006, 65% of hybrid rice seeds were produced by SL Agritech, 25% by the government and 10% by other companies (Bayer, etc). But more than market forces were at work here. The owner-chairman-CEO of SL Agritech, local billionaire Henry Lim Bon Liong, is closely connected to key government officials, such as former Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr, and was involved in crafting the hybrid rice programme. Lorenzo publicly considers him to be instrumental in acquiring the technical know-how (of hybrid rice) from China and applying it in the Philippine setting. Obviously Lorenzo's pronouncement was made to rally the support of the Filipino-Chinese community (particularly the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce that Henry Lim was then director of) around his agricultural modernization programme, and his hybrid rice efforts. For a time, Henry Lim reportedly worked as a consultant of the hybrid rice programme under Lorenzo, and then later moved on to become a member of the General Council of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD). At the moment SL Agritech is reportedly the sole authorized supplier ('preferred partner') of the hybrid rice variety accepted by Department of Agriculture officials. Going by the estimates of some farmers' organizations, SL Agritech may have already pocketed some P208 million (US$ 4.3 million) from the subsidy scheme.



Despite the subsidy, however, hybrid rice struggles to take root in the Philippines. In fact, the Department of Agriculture acknowledged in early 2006 that there was a 50-60 percent drop-out rate among farmers who adopted hybrid rice. This was based on a mid-term assessment conducted by Philrice and STRIVE Foundation. The reasons were: the hybrid rice technology is 'quite new' to farmers and 'difficult' to follow and the rice is susceptible to pests and diseases, has high cost of production and is prone to seasonal variations in yield. It was the same case two years earlier. In a 2004 study of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), a government research institute, the drop-out rate among hybrid rice adopters was found to be particularly high despite the subsidies extended by the government. The study acknowledged that the direct subsidy on seeds and fertilisers was unsustainable and recommended using other ways to support farmers. The Department of Agriculture seemed to take the recommendations to heart and began a phase-out of its subsidy that year, aiming to fully cut support in 2007. Officials at the Department of Agriculture and Philrice apparently believed that farmers successful with hybrid rice would be able to afford the seeds without subsidies.



But the policy change didn't last long. It now appears that the government is just reorganizing the subsidy scheme again. Under the guise of meeting millennium goal targets, the Department of Agriculture reconstituted its subsidy scheme by forming 'rice clusters' seemingly to have more control of hybrid rice growing in the country. Farmers will be organized 'geographically' based on a set of contiguous rice areas of about 100 hectares within one-kilometer radius in a municipality. Farmers belonging to cluster areas will be assured of technical support, and will be given greater access to credit, high quality seeds, farm machinery and fertilizer discounts. They will also be assured of water supply and access to post-harvest facilities. This approach supposedly makes the GMA rice program easier to implement, monitor and document, as it organizes individual farmers into a manageable entity (a cluster) and links them to bigger communities.

(Note: in some areas up north farmers have been told they will not get irrigation water unless they use hybrid rice.)

The GMA rice program that dispenses this subsidy envisions “a sustainable self-sufficient rice economy” – projecting a total of 16.67 million tons of total paddy production - this year (2007). But some farmers' groups are not convinced about the subsidy scheme nor about the target production for hybrid rice. Sentro Saka, a national network of farmers organizations, claims that there have been no significant reductions on the country's rice imports since the hybrid rice program was launched six years ago. In fact, for the most part, rice imports have consistently increased, this year being the highest so far, projected to be about 1.7 million metric tons. The group also claims that although the Department of Agriculture previously boasted about the GMA rice program being the answer to rice production shortages, the Department's own data shows that hybrid rice barely contributed to the overall production.

SL Agritech Corp wants subsidies until half of rice farmers in Philippines growing hybrids

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200501060707. ...

Disadvantages

• Seed cost was almost 2.5 times more for hybrids than for conventional high yielding varieties.


• The expected output price was lower for hybrid rice grain than actual price for conventional high yielding varieties.


• The hybrid rice seed production usually requires more labor specially to accomplish certain critical farm operations like row planting, supplementary pollination, leaf clipping, gap filling, rouging and GA₃ application etc. Hence the cost incurred on seed production was found to be high.


• Hybrids require more doses of fertilizers.


• Hybrid seed is not suitable for second crop.

DA responds to organic clamor

Unexpectedly in May 2008 the DA responded to the clamor of organic farmer groups, announcing the use of organic fertilizers to raise farm yields and reduce production costs.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, says the DA’s “Organikong Pagsasaka” program, with an allocation of P500 million this year, forms part of the P43.7-billion FIELDS initiative to guarantee food security. Yap admits that the use of organic fertilizers and non-chemical dependent technologies has led to better crop quality and higher yields.

Yap adds that weaning farmers away from the use of chemical inputs would lower farm production costs amid soaring prices of petroleum-based fertilizers which have increased by about 300 percent over the last five years. A bag of chemical fertilizer now costs as much as P1,900. Palay farmers usually use up to 20 bags of chemical fertilizers per cropping.

Under “Organikong Pagsasaka,” the DA introduced the Modified Rapid Composting (MRC) technology in 16 regions, according to Director Silvino Tejada of the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM). Harvest festivals in MRC techno-demo farms have already been held in Negros Occidental, Maguindanao, Quezon, Camarines Sur, Bukidnon, Eastern Samar and Iloilo, Tejada said.

Farmers that participated reported an increase of 20 percent in yields, 30-40 percent in profits, and a 30-50 percent reduction in input expenses. They also reported improvements in soil quality, and better water retention of the land which has reduced the frequency of irrigation by as much as 50 percent.

The Organikong Pagsasaka program uses locally developed organic farming techniques and farmers produce their own high-grade biofertilizers from farm wastes which they use, selling the excess.

The program, which implements Executive Order 481 titled “Promotion and Development of Organic Agriculture in the Philippines,” will first target rice, corn and vegetable farms nationwide, Tejada said.

5 nations led by Thailand agree to fix prices banners Philippine Daily Inquirer, 05/01/2008. “The countries of Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam have agreed in principle to form a rice price-fixing cartel similar to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as costs of the staple grain rocket, Thailand’s prime minister said on Wednesday. Thailand’s Premier Samak Sundaravej said the grouping of Mekong nations would be called the Organization of Rice Exporting Countries (OREC). “I have talked with Burma and invited them to join the rice exporting countries cartel, which will include Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, to fix the price,” Samak told reporters.”

Stunning news that posed some questions about the viability of this seminal OREC. While OPEC deals with a non-renewable product, OREC’s product, rice, is renewable and anyone can produce it if profitable.

Be that as it may, the lament that the Thais owe their rice growing skills from U.P. Los Baños is an embarrassing misconception. The truth about the abundance of Thai and Vietnamese rice harvests is due to the benevolence of the awesome Mekong River. The Mekong is one of the world’s major rivers, the 12th-longest river in the world. Its estimated length of 4,350 km (2,703 mi), runs from the Tibetan Plateau through China's Yunnan province, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The annual flooding of the river acts like a giant irrigation system that deposits silt on the flooded ricelands and replenishes nutrients. Contrast this natural event with man-made irrigation that supplies water devoid of nourishing silt. Imagine the Banaue rice terraces dependent only on rain water growing rice for thousands of years and the constant depletion of nutrients which now requires supplementary synthetic fertilizer and pesticides, input costs that eats profits and ensures poverty.

An IRRI economist expressing it in plain language a decade earlier said that maybe self-sufficiency requires more investment than it is worth. "Despite playing a key role in Asia’s Green Revolution," David Dawe said, "the Philippines may never attain rice sufficiency and could be better off importing cereals." He added, “self sufficiency has a cost if you want to do it and that cost is borne by the poor. Dawe said arable land is in short supply in the Philippines where only 30 percent is planted to rice. The soil itself is "more suited to growing coconuts and maize" and lacking the major river systems and rainfall patterns available for the heavily water-dependent crop in such areas as Bangladesh, Thailand and Vietnam. "God made that land for growing rice," Dawe said.

Manila scraps rice purchases

DA officially declared Monday's eagerly-awaited tender a failure after Vietnam's state-owned Vinafood II, the sole participant, failed to supply a bank guarantee. After consistently failing to secure the asked-for volume in recent tenders with private dealers, the government will deal exclusively with state firms and traders with government guarantees.

THE National Food Authority yesterday said government needs to buy 500,000 to 700,000.metric tons of rice (on top of already bought 1.7 million metric tons) to augment the country’s buffer stocks for the typhoon season

NFA says the country has a 64-day stock, both government and household, the government stock of 770,000 tons is good for 23 days and 1.7 million metric tons have been contracted from imports, enough for the lean months of July to September.

Corporate farming

She said corporations without landholdings but which decide to engage in rice production may lease public agricultural lands. Those intending to import rice for their employees tell the NFA to be eligible for "fiscal privileges."

Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez, head of the CBCP’s public affairs committee, said he was not discounting the possibility of "irregularities" in Arroyo’s decision to scrap public bidding procedures in favor of government-to-government negotiations in rice importation.

Bureau of Agricultural Statistics 2007 data for a crude roadmap to rice self-sufficiency: “Palay” (unhusked rice) production was 16,240,000 metric tons. At a milling rate of 65 percent, rice produced was 10,556,000 metric tons. Out of this, 2.0 percent was used as seeds and 10.5 percent was lost in processing. As a result, only 9,237,000 metric tons reached the dinner table.

Rice consumption per capita was about 120 kilograms. At a population of 87 million, the total consumption was 10,440,000 metric tons. The shortfall of over 1,200,000 metric tons was covered by importation. A beginning inventory of 2,000,000 metric tons served as buffer stock.

Hectares planted to rice totaled 4,277,889 (2,917,012 irrigated, 1,356,877 rain-fed). Palay production was about 3.8 metric tons per hectare nationwide.

In the global context, food is a complex political issue and quick fixes are not enough. Without a long-term plan that takes a bold stand against the trade distortions that have contributed to the crisis, any action will just be placebo pill. Continuous food crises will be the new global norm unless the international community works together to find fair and sustainable solutions to tackle the root causes of global food insecurity.

As for Filipinos, accept the fact that our agriculture cannot produce enough rice to feed our population , and that U.P.Los Baños is no Ceres. Unless we intend to use starvation as the primary policy to control population growth, Filipinos must act aggressively to reform agriculture, starting modestly with AFMA. Food, the fundamental determinant of health, IS life.

Rice Queues to test Pinoy discipline

Rice Queues to test Pinoy discipline

The healthy Filipino queuer in NFA rice queues can breathe a deep sigh of relief for such not so small blessings, namely the mulled increase (reckless ploy) of NFA subsidized price will not push through, and the sleazy NFA existence will be prolonged. Nevertheless, as one paper editorial wails, ‘Their suspicion is Gloria is fanning fears of a crisis so people could be distracted from corruption scandals hounding her administration.’ Hardly anyone can deny that this administration is hopping from crisis to crisis -- election scam, fertilizer scam, Broadband scam, soaring fuel prices, skyhigh medicine costs, pervasive corruption in the bureaucracy and military, foreign encroachment on our presumptive territorial claims under UNCLOS. The hardcore Palace propaganda battalion is so close to being overwhelmed we may soon find they too are tired of recycling their tired trite tripe. Cleanup of the airwaves would help mitigate air pollution.

For how long can the government keep the price of rice at its present level? The NFA buys unmilled rice at P17 a kilogram that translates to a selling price of P34 a kilo after milling, meaning that the NFA loses P15.75 for every kilo it sells at P18.25. The subsidy of imported rice is about P10 per kilo based on a purchase price of $700 per ton. Under its current level of buying and selling, it is estimated that the NFA would lose close to P50 billion a year. Where will PGMA get that kind of money without sacrificing her infrastructure construction program and her goal of balancing the budget in 2010?

The public fear of a rice shortage is forcing officialdom’s frenzied moves of damage control to calm public anxiety. The hasty knee-jerk attempts are sometimes silly, an example being the patronizing proposal of PGMA to craft a Consumers Rights Bill which would make redundant the existing Consumers Act of 1992 (Republic Act No. 7394).

NBI chief Mantaring, tasked by PGMA and DOJ to investigate instances of rice hoarding and price gouging, exceeded his mandate by including smuggling in his probe. For his exuberance, he was taken to task by the President for straying into smuggler-sniffing. The scolding raises suspicions of a cover up about an exhumation of the Jose Pidal – smuggler link exposé of Senator Lacson.

The NFA was intended to help moderate prices and provide support to farmers by guaranteeing a good price for their produce. It has not succeeded in doing either of these things. And now when world food prices, including that of rice, are shooting up and reaching record highs, the NFA has maintained its selling price at P18.25 a kilo. This has not held back traders from pricing commercial rice at more than P30 a kilo, with some fancy varieties going for as much as P60. Neither is it going to be of much help in encouraging farmers to plant more by making them earn more since traders are the ones who are making a killing in the tight supply situation that we have now.

The NFA is a small player in the rice and corn business, and will remain so unless the government infuses it with enormous sums of money that will allow it to control the market, amounts the government cannot afford. The NFA will have to be made history, and its demise labeled with an epitaph: an admonition that boondoggles are bad for public health. The government must also move quickly to achieve rice self-sufficiency.

The growing queues of the urban poor seeking their daily ration of rice, if not a crisis situation now might soon be if it spins out of control, becomes a rice crisis which turns into a full blown food emergency triggered by panic buying. Those with little or no money, a third of the population, will convert the panic into food riots and chaos will reign. Propaganda will be worse than useless, as this item is not just tasteless but cruel under such circumstances.

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.