Pandemic and yet the government of President Rodrigo Roa
Duterte is being constantly being criticized by his political opponents from
the opposition regarding his handling of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) issue.
The opposition are making it appear that this is China vs the
Philippines and beyond that is the
President who refuses to uphold what is rightfully for the country.
Duterte in his latest nationally televised press briefing
dared the previous administration to tell the truth who ordered the withdrawal
of Philippine ships from the shoal which gave the Chinese the de facto control
of the area.
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Veteran journalist Rigoberto Tiglao in his article explain
and gave the inside story of what really happened in 2012.
“Del Rosario. in fact. will go down in Philippine history as
the person to have dropped the ball so that this Republic lost its first
territory. For that alone, del Rosario should have the decency to shut up on our
territorial disputes with China.”
For purposes of public knowledge and for the sake of clarity
we have quoed in full his article published in the Manila Times dated April 26,
2021.
Del Rosario lost Panatag to China
THE gall of former foreign affairs secretary Albert del
Rosario to even open his mouth on the Whitsun Reef brouhaha and to admonish the
Duterte administration to do this or that in dealing with China.
In an article prominently posted yesterday in the Philippine Star, owned by the Indonesian-controlled First Pacific where del Rosario got most of his income for two decades, he wrote:
“On Panatag/Scarborough, an agreement in settling an impasse
in 2012 was brokered by the US. It involved the withdrawal of all ships on both
sides by a certain time. We withdrew while China deceitfully breached our
agreement.”
That is a gargantuan lie. Not even the US claims that. Only
del Rosario; nobody else — not even his fellow Sinophobe Antonio Carpio or even
former president Aquino 3rd — dares repeat that lie that has been
incontrovertibly proven as such. Del Rosario. in fact. will go down in
Philippine history as the person to have dropped the ball so that this Republic
lost its first territory. For that alone, del Rosario should have the decency
to shut up on our territorial disputes with China.
In May 2012, a ‘standoff” ensued at the Panatag (Scarborough)
Shoal as Chinese and Philippine vessels were in its lagoon for eight weeks
after the former blocked an attempt by our warship BRP Gregorio del Pilar to arrest Chinese fishermen, who were allegedly
illegally fishing there. Neither side would leave. To do so would have meant
abandoning the area; thereby losing sovereignty over it. The stand-off went on
for eight weeks.
On June 3, del Rosario ordered our vessels to leave the
shoal, according to a written aide memoire by then senator Antonio Trillanes
4th, who was appointed by Aquino to be his backchannel negotiator to the
Chinese and an eyewitness as it were to the events.
Trillanes wrote in his aide-memoire: “On the morning of 04
June, PNoy called to inform me our BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic
Resources) vessels had already left the shoal but China had reneged on the
agreement of simultaneous withdrawal of ships so 2 CMS vessels are still
inside.”
Who agreed?
“I asked him (Aquino), who agreed with what, since I was just hammering out the
details of the sequential withdrawal because the mouth of the shoal was too
narrow for a simultaneous withdrawal. He told me Sec. del Rosario told him
about the agreement reached in Washington. This time I asked him, if the
agreement was simultaneous withdrawal, ‘why did we leave first?’
PNoy responded to this effect, ‘kaya nga sinabihan ko si Albert kung
bakit niya pinalabas yung BFAR na hindi ko nalalaman.’ (That’s
why I scolded Albert why he ordered the BFAR vessel to leave the shoal without
me knowing it.)”
The Chinese didn’t leave the lagoon and subsequently blocked our ships
from returning. The Philippines lost Scarborough — forever, as it were since
there’s no chance in the world the Chinese would be persuaded to return it to
us.
Perhaps del Rosario heard what he just wanted to hear — the
Chinese had agreed to leave — as the mess was the consequence of the
belligerent position, he advised Aquino to adopt. He and Aquino were desperate
as the US had refused to intervene in the stand-off.
Del Rosario trusted the Americans so much, claiming he was told by US
Assistant State Secretary Kurt Campbell, relayed through our ambassador in
Washington, Jose Cuisia, the Chinese had agreed to a simultaneous withdrawal.
Foreign minister
There was no such agreement. He gullibly believed the US official’s claim he
got the Chinese, represented by Fu Ying, then China’s vice foreign minister for
Asia, to agree to withdraw their vessels from Scarborough Shoal.
Plain common sense tells us it is impossible for such an agreement on
such an important crisis — and on a sovereignty issue — to have been made by
one Chinese official and in a one-hour meeting in a hotel room, without even
consulting her superiors.
Campbell, who retired from government service in 2013, would have raised
a howl China had reneged on an agreement he had brokered, since this would even
bolster the US propaganda of China was deceitful. Campbell hasn’t.
In his 2016 book, The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft
in Asia, his only mention of the episode in one sentence: “The Philippines’
ten-week standoff with China ultimately resulted in its loss of the Scarborough
Shoal, which is claimed by both countries.”
Negotiations
Anyone only a bit familiar with the nature of negotiations between countries,
the Chinese decision-making process and the circumstances of the Scarborough
stand-off would laugh at del Rosario’s claim Campbell got the Chinese to agree
to the pullout.
“Any scenario based on the PRC agreeing to US mediation in its dealings
with the Philippines is, for lack of a nicer word, horsepucky,” China observer
Peter Lee wrote. “The PRC’s detestation of the internationalization of its
one-sided scrum with the Philippines is a byword in Chinese diplomacy. Maybe as
a courtesy, Fu agreed to transmit the US proposal back to Beijing; most likely,
the leadership’s decision would have been to reject any US involvement in the
matter.”
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In an interview a year later by a Financial Times reporter
who asked her about the alleged agreement, Fu replied: “I do not know what
agreement you are referring to. The Chinese vessels did not leave the area
because they feared the Philippines might double-cross us. All China is doing
is to keep an eye on the island for fear the Philippines would do it again.”
So why would the US, through Campbell, fool del Rosario into losing
Scarborough?
Subsequent events explain why.
EDCA
First, frightened by the US and their local minions the Chinese would use
Scarborough as a jumping board to take over other nearby islands, the Aquino
regime agreed to the euphemistically titled “Enhanced Defense Cooperation
Agreement (EDCA),” a thinly veiled restoration, in a more cost-effective way,
of American military bases here. When Aquino and del Rosario groveled to
Washington to beg President Obama to order the US navy to escort Philippine
ships so they could return to the shoal, they were told they can’t risk even a
regional war, as they didn’t have forward bases in the South China Sea. Aquino
gave them those forward bases through the EDCA.
And second, it prodded Aquino and del Rosario to file the arbitration
suit against China in January. It served as a huge and expensive smokescreen
for their loss of Scarborough Shoal. People forgot about it, believing the suit
could recover it. It didn’t. Worse, the arbitration award affirmed: “The
Tribunal records that this decision is entirely without prejudice to the
question of sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal.”
For the US, the arbitration suit not only served to paint China as a
bully in the region. More importantly, since the suit ruled that no feature in
the South China Sea can have a 200-natuical mile exclusive economic zone, it
gave the US navy some legal basis for patrolling it as if it were a US lake,
euphemistically called their freedom of navigation operations.
I am appalled at del Rosario’s continuing, shameless lies on how we lost
Scarborough. It is indeed a testament to the power of oligarchs, through their
control of media such as the Star and the Philippine
Daily Inquirer, to mold public opinion to hide his witting or unwitting
betrayal of our national interest. Del Rosario is telling us: “I am rich and
with the oligarchs: I can make you believe what I want you to.”
Delirious
I’m afraid though del Rosario in his delirious bitterness towards China and
Duterte may be losing his marbles. What kind of person would write, as he did
in his piece yesterday, referring to a war with China: “If threatened by the
use of force, we should be ready to inflict, at the very least, a bloody nose
on any attacker who is out to harm us.”
He thinks war with China or any other country is just like schoolboys’
fisticuffs, that would involve only bloody noses? Such bellicose braggadocio
coming from an 81-year old man is pathetic and at the same time appalling.
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Report from Manila Times
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