MERGED: RP-China Territorial Dispute, Related Events and Updates

[Peenut]

---

Nawala na ang dungog sa Spratlys. Unsa na kahay gama ani didto.

[THE KID]

tingalig i abot sa spratleys ang sea bridge sa china....

[Peenut]

Mo mediate daw si Trump.. hahahah. patay na

[Peenut]

Currently, successful ang China in building radars, aircraft runways, and ports sa spratlys.

Nabalita ni sa time, theguardian, ug ubang reliable news provider nga international.

Tensions rises, kay sige man ug monitor ang US. Included sa news, magpadala ang UK ug ilahang aircraft carrier didto.


Tinood ba kaha to gi ingon sa Defense Sec. sauna ni Obama nga, "five years from now, we'll go to war with China in the South Pacific"

[firestarter]

Kadtong wala gyud kasabot ug kinsay naka among aning tanan.. Naa diri ang tubag.. Short read for a long discussion.

Aquino, Trillanes blamed Del Rosario for Panatag loss
BY RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO ON JUNE 20, 2018 OPINION ON PAGE ONE

RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO


Second of a 4-part series
BOTH President Benigno Aquino 3rd and Sen. Antonio Trillanes 4th blamed then Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto del Rosario for the country’s losing Panatag (Scarborough or Bajo de Masinloc) Shoal in 2012 to China.

Yet del Rosario has to gall to call President Duterte’s Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana a propaganda tool of China for saying in an interview that Aquino mismanaged the sea dispute.

The truth is that if there is anybody who is a propaganda tool, it is the US-educated del Rosario, who by his actions and statements, especially since he was our ambassador to the US, has indisputably proven to be the very reliable mouthpiece of the US’ deep state. This has been crucial for the US since, as it does not have any claim in the disputed seas, it desperately required proxies in the area, roles which Aquino and del Rosario very ably assumed.

It was the reckless deployment by Aquino, del Rosario’s boss, of our biggest warship, the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, to Panatag Shoal on April 12, 2012 that triggered a stand-off between Chinese and Philippine vessels that lasted for six weeks. According to Aquino and Trillanes, it was del Rosario’s order directing our vessels to withdraw from the area that effectively handed over the shoal to China.


Aquino had blustered that the frigate would defend against the Chinese Maritime Surveillance (CMS) the vessels of our Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and Coast Guard which had arrested a number of Chinese fishermen for “illegal fishing” in the shoal. Aquino, told of his mistake, immediately ordered the frigate to leave the area. It was a boo-boo that couldn’t be “deleted,” and China exploited it to claim that the Philippines militarized the disputed shoal.


Trillanes with Aquino (left); Del Rosario (right) in a photo from the 2017 annual report of Hong Kong-based First Pacific, of which he is a director. Controlled by an Indonesian, some 30 percent of First Pacific’s shares are held by US investors.

Rather than sending its own warships though, China deployed several CMS vessels to escort more than 90 Chinese fishing boats to the shoal in, ironically for us, a seaborne “People Power”-of-sorts tactic against our ships. For seven weeks, there was a standoff, with both Chinese and Philippine vessels refusing to leave the area.

Colossal mistake
However, on June 3, del Rosario ordered our BFAR and Coast Guard vessels to leave the shoal. This was a colossal mistake as it left the Chinese in complete control of the shoal, and they have never left the area. That’s how we completely lost Panatag, the first territory ever that we have lost.

Among the many similar accounts on the Philippine blunder is a November 2014 report of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA)—a think-tank for the US military—that concluded:

“China resolved the sovereignty dispute with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal in 2012 when it established control over the shoal. Again, it is unlikely to relinquish it. The government of the Philippines is in no position to even begin to contemplate the use of force to recover Scarborough, and the United States is not going to become involved in any attempt to expel the Chinese.”

Both in an interview with Trillanes with me in 2015, and in his aide memoire “Backchannel Talks” that he gave me, the senator claimed it was del Rosario who was responsible for the boo-boo, with Aquino himself blaming his foreign secretary. He was so angry at del Rosario that in my talk with him and with a television network, he said what del Rosario did was treason.

“PNoy called me to inform me that our two BFAR vessels already left the shoal but China reneged on the agreement of simultaneous withdrawal of their ships, so two of them [were]still inside the shoal,” Trillanes wrote in his aide memoire.

“I asked him 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. The President told me that Secretary del Rosario told him about the agreement reached in Washington,” Trillanes wrote.

Trillanes continued: “This time I asked PNoy, ‘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 asked Albert [del Rosario]why he ordered the BFAR vessels to leave without my permission.”)

Fu Ying meet
According to my government and diplomatic sources as well as to the report of Ellen Tordesillas, who was the most knowledgeable diplomatic reporter at the time, what transpired was as follows:

Fu Ying, vice minister of Foreign Affairs in charge of Asia (who had been ambassador here from 1998 to 2000) met on June 1 with Kurt Campbell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, in Washington, to discuss Aquino and del Rosario’s request for the Americans to intervene—even militarily, my sources claimed—in the crisis. Campbell relayed President Obama’s position that the US cannot intervene in the dispute, and instead suggested a simultaneous withdrawal of vessels from Panatag Shoal to de-escalate the tension.

The Chinese official told Campbell that she would relay the suggestion to her superiors in Beijing. However, for some unexplained reason, then US Ambassador to Manila Harry Thomas told del Rosario that China had already agreed to a simultaneous withdrawal.

The gullible del Rosario immediately ordered, in the middle of the night, the BFAR and Coast Guard vessels to pull out, leaving the Chinese in complete control of the shoal. Aquino would only find out about the pull-out when he woke up—a bit late—the following morning.

That this was what happened is bolstered by a DFA statement released in July 2012 to explain why the Philippines failed to convince the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to condemn China’s takeover of the shoal:

“On the reference to ‘duplicity and intimidation,’ the Philippines forged an agreement with China for the simultaneous pullout of all vessels inside the shoal, which we undertook in good faith on June 4. Furthermore, China agreed to remove its barrier at the entrance of the shoal.

“Yet to this day, China has not fulfilled its obligations under the agreement and has maintained its ships inside and outside the shoal, as well as its barrier, in its aim to establish effective control and jurisdiction in the shoal and surrounding waters.”

Neither US nor China
Neither the US nor China, of course, have confirmed that there was such an agreement. If there was, and it was the US that mediated the pact, wouldn’t it have condemned China for violating it?

Among the questions raised by this account:
1. Did Campbell really tell their Ambassador Thomas, to tell del Rosario that the Chinese had agreed to withdraw from the shoal? Or did Thomas misinterpret his superior’s communication? Or worse, did the 73-year-old del Rosario hear what he wanted to hear, as the standoff had lasted for seven weeks, and he was crumbling under the tension?

2. Or, as Trillanes alleged, was del Rosario’s real intention was to worsen the rift between China and the Philippines, which he claimed was the agenda of the foreign secretary’s business boss, Manuel V. Pangilinan, so the US itself would eventually protect one of his firm’s oil-drilling projects in the Reed Bank, also claimed by China?

3. How could del Rosario go over the head of Aquino that he could order the BFAR and Coast Guard ships to leave Panatag?

Del Rosario should give his side on these questions in the planned Senate investigation on our territorial dispute with China.

Or he could ask the Philippine Star, which his boss Pangilinan (whose boss in turn is the Indonesian tycoon Anthoni Salim) controls, to devote a whole page to explain his side on how we lost Panatag.

On Wednesday: How Aquino and the Yellow Media hid the loss of Panatag from the nation

Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
Twitter: @bobitiglao
Archives: rigobertotiglao.com

[Peenut]

The sleeping giant. Hilom hilom lang. Hahaha
After six years... dalia ra oy

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Co...outh-China-Sea

[digitalsuperman]

we can't totally put all the blame on the previous administration as they have tried also their best to find solution about the issue


they also have inherited the problem when they came in that they didn't neglect there duty


in fact, considering that we don't have the arms then it was good we seeks the help of UNCLOS


it was very difficult on the part of the previous administration to pursue such action since the decision came out during the waning days already


and if ever the back channeling was really made or the past DFA team then went to agree terms with China ... so it's the same thing as what is happening to the current administration. Malacañan at present has given much more leeway to China nowadays with greater open arms yet China has not recede a little bit of it's hold


what China doing now is like putting some flowering touches on top of everything that they can fully scratch it with a single stroke if they don't feel like it anymore

yup. past admin did something. and frankly, sa akong opinion, wala naman mahimo ang pinas ana.wala man gani nabuhat ang UN. wala man gani nabuhat ang US. rest assured boss, when china first sent boats to the island, the americans knew about it. they knew it wasn't right.but did they do something? no. china is prepared to declare war if pugson ug kuha ang island. are we prepared for war for one island? imo sacrifice ang lives of millions para lang sa usa ka gamay nga island? dali raman pagsulti gud. daghan isug kay naa raman sa internet. kanang mga isug why not join the army para daghan tag tao para sa gyera. they need more people. philippines has more problems to fix. glad the government is focusing on that.

[firestarter]

Naay siyay point.

Aquino, Del Rosario and media hid the loss of Panatag to China from the nation 0
BY RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO ON JUNE 25, 2018 EDITORS' PICKS, OPINION ON PAGE ONE
Twitter
RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO
RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO

Third of a 4-part series
IT’S a cliché for sure, but I can’t help using it in disgust over the episode: “Only in the Philippines.” Indeed, where else could a nation’s loss of its territory be hidden for so long by its President, with the help of a media that claims to be independent?

The inept Aquino government on June 3, 2012 gave up Panatag Shoal (Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal) to the Chinese, yet managed to keep it under wraps, so that the truth came out only in trickles over several years. So much so that many Filipinos, even knowledgeable ones, are unaware of that enormous loss, and how it happened, to this day.

This chapter is also an indictment of how media, especially the most powerful newspaper at that time, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, betrayed the nation by wittingly or unwittingly hiding that loss of Philippine territory which was the result of President Aquino 3rd and his foreign secretary Alberto del Rosario’s bungling.

Chinese and Philippine government vessels had been on a stand-off for seven weeks in May and April 2012 in Panatag Shoal, with each party’s vessels refusing to move. On June 3 though, del Rosario without Aquino’s permission, ordered our three ships to leave the area. The Chinese never left the shoal; that’s how we lost Panatag – forever as it were.


Del Rosario, a corporate executive-turned-foreign-affairs-secretary, obviously didn’t do his homework on this most crucial foreign-affairs issue. In 1975, the Vietnamese had fooled our troops who had been holding Southwest Cay (also in the Spratlys) since 1968, to leave for a party in a nearby island that Vietnam occupied. They returned the next morning to find that the Vietnamese had occupied their island, barring them from landing on it. The Vietnamese of course never left it and even built fortifications on it.

But in that case, it was low-ranking soldiers probably bored out of their wits in a so faraway island, who were fooled and lost our territory; in this case it was our foreign secretary.

Left June 3
The spokesman of China’s foreign ministry Li Weimin issued a statement on Sunday, June 4, 2012 : “The remaining Philippine vessel finally left the lagoon on June 3.” The spokesman even arrogantly warned the Philippines: “China does not hope to see any more provocative behavior that hurts China’s interest,” referring to what it called “Huangyan incident” when starting “April 10, Philippine warships* harassed Chinese fishermen.”

It was Sen. Antonio Trillanes 4th who disclosed that del Rosario had ordered the Philippine vessels to leave. Either del Rosario was so gullible that he believed then US Ambassador Harry Thomas’ communication to him that the US got China to agree to a simultaneous withdrawal of both countries’ ships. Or, as Trillanes alleged, del Rosario simply wanted the rift between China and the Philippines to worsen. The senator explained that he was still working out with the Chinese details of the simultaneous withdrawal when he was told, to his shock, that the Filipino vessels had already left.

Del Rosario would later claim that the Chinese reneged on its agreement for a simultaneous withdrawal, although even the US has not confirmed that China had agreed to withdraw. He kept on referring to a stand-off over Panatag, never saying that the Chinese control it after our vessels were ordered out.

Banner story
The Philippine Daily Inquirer had a banner story on June 16, two weeks after China took control of the shoal after del Rosario ordered our vessels out: “PH ships leave Panatag.” The banner story’s drophead read: “ ‘Butchoy’ forces end to stand-off with China,” referring to a typhoon with international code name “Guchol.”

The article quoted del Rosario: “Citing bad weather, President Aquino has ordered home two Philippine ships engaged in a standoff with China over Scarborough Shoal.”


TOTAL LIES: Our ships left two weeks later, ordered by del Rosario. China never pulled out its ships.

That was a total fabrication. Typhoon “Butchoy” never even entered the Philippine mainland, and moved on the opposite side of Luzon. And even if it had battered Panatag, its lagoon had been for centuries a refuge for even small fishing vessels to shield themselves from the roughest seas. It was a lie disseminated by almost all print and broadcast media on June 16:

GMA News Online: ”Aquino orders pullout of PHL ships from Panatag Shoal due to bad weather”;

Rappler.com: “PH pulls out ships from Scarborough due to bad weather”;

Philstar: “President Aquino ordered two Philippine ships to pull out of Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal due to bad weather Friday night.”

ABS-CBN News’ report though was a bigger fabrication: “China pulls out boats from Scarborough.” The lede paragraph read: “Following a similar move by the Philippines, China pulled out its fishing boats from Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal last Sunday due to ‘inclement’ weather.” Chinese vessels of course had remained in the shoal in the lagoon, and leaving only when replacements arrive.

The much bigger smokescreen that Aquino and del Rosario employed to conceal their culpability for the loss of Panatag was the case it filed against China at the Permanent Court of Arbitration for violating the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Even as the PCA’s “award” cannot be enforced – and didn’t rule on who owns Panatag as well as other disputed areas in the Spratlys – the case had portrayed Aquino and del Rosario as boldly fighting for Philippine territory, thus concealing that they lost Philippine territory because of their ineptness.

Trillanes disclosure
To be honest, I myself for two years had been fooled that we hadn’t lost Panatag and that we were still struggling with China over it, although I had written a column during the stand-off explaining that it was Aquino who triggered the crisis when he sent our biggest warship in the area (“Scarborough fail: How Aquino blew it,” May 4, 2012),

It is ironic that it was in an interview in November 2014 with Trillanes, in which he alleged del Rosario’s culpability for the loss which he claimed was deliberate, that I realized that our government stupidly lost Panatag to the Chinese.

To this day, it has been only specialized articles on the South China Sea by foreigners that we are told unequivocally that the Aquino administration lost Panatag in 2012. A recent one was an article in a book (Examining the South China Sea Disputes: Papers from the Fifth Annual CSIS South China Sea Conference) which narrated:

“In the Scarborough Shoal incident of 2012, China’s Fisheries Law Enforcement Command (FLEC) prevented the arrest of Chinese fishers by a Philippine coast guard cutter … The FLEC ships moved between the Philippine cutter and the fishing ships, beginning a standoff that ended when Manila withdrew its cutter and other vessels, and China occupied Scarborough Shoal.”

A report of the Center for Naval Analyses, a think-tank for the US military, explained the implications of such occupation:

“China resolved the sovereignty dispute with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal in 2012 when it established control over the shoal. Again, it is unlikely to relinquish it. The government of the Philippines is in no position to even begin to contemplate the use of force to recover Scarborough, and the United States is not going to become involved in any attempt to expel the Chinese.”

On Wednesday: Aquino and del Rosario begged US to intervene in the Panatag stand-off, and were rudely rebuffed.

Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
Twitter: @bobitiglao
Archives: rigoberto.tiglao@gmail.com

- - - Updated - - -

we can't totally put all the blame on the previous administration as they have tried also their best to find solution about the issue


they also have inherited the problem when they came in that they didn't neglect there duty


in fact, considering that we don't have the arms then it was good we seeks the help of UNCLOS


it was very difficult on the part of the previous administration to pursue such action since the decision came out during the waning days already


and if ever the back channeling was really made or the past DFA team then went to agree terms with China ... so it's the same thing as what is happening to the current administration. Malacañan at present has given much more leeway to China nowadays with greater open arms yet China has not recede a little bit of it's hold


what China doing now is like putting some flowering touches on top of everything that they can fully scratch it with a single stroke if they don't feel like it anymore

basa usa bradier.

- - - Updated - - -

yup. past admin did something. and frankly, sa akong opinion, wala naman mahimo ang pinas ana.wala man gani nabuhat ang UN. wala man gani nabuhat ang US. rest assured boss, when china first sent boats to the island, the americans knew about it. they knew it wasn't right.but did they do something? no. china is prepared to declare war if pugson ug kuha ang island. are we prepared for war for one island? imo sacrifice ang lives of millions para lang sa usa ka gamay nga island? dali raman pagsulti gud. daghan isug kay naa raman sa internet. kanang mga isug why not join the army para daghan tag tao para sa gyera. they need more people. philippines has more problems to fix. glad the government is focusing on that.

Daghan ko masugatan anang mag sigeg ingon nga gyera gyera, pero ug ako ng ingnon nga nag sige nag recruit ang army kay need nato ug mga tawo nga isog para i sulong sa gyera, maglihay2x dayon ug istorya.

[digitalsuperman]

Daghan ko masugatan anang mag sigeg ingon nga gyera gyera, pero ug ako ng ingnon nga nag sige nag recruit ang army kay need nato ug mga tawo nga isog para i sulong sa gyera, maglihay2x dayon ug istorya.

bitaw if nahan sila then why not help the nation an enlist sila sa army diba? we need more people against chinese army. lols.

[amingb]

ug dili gubat ang solution unsa man ? kanang Haque ruling nga walay gamit .... kanang hague arbritration dili mana Court ug ili sab me parti sa United Nation ilahang trabaho kay services raman sa mga conflict ...

Kinsa may mo implement anang Hague Ruling ?