Gov't fixing damage of Arroyo-China deal

China’s six recent incursions in the Recto (Reed) Bank, off western Palawan, were not isolated incidents. They coincided with, and so were likely Chinese reactions to, Philippine sovereign acts in those territorial waters. In January Phl began overdue development of oil and gas finds in that undisputed part of the South China Sea. In March Phl intensified coast guarding against alien vessels and poachers. In April Phl protested in the UN China’s “nine-dash line” claim over most of the South China Sea, especially as it encroaches on the Recto Bank.

These things Phl actually should have done years ago. Foreign and Filipino petroleum firms had long completed explorations of the Recto Bank and were ready for extractions. Periodic absence of Phl patrols from the area was taken to mean as abandonment. As for China’s assertion over the 3.5-million square-kilometer South Sea, international law and concord with ASEAN were breached. China’s unilateral declaration of May 7, 2009, covered the Paracels, which Vietnam also claims, and the Spratlys, which Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and PH occupy in part. More than that, it included the Recto Bank, which is but 80 miles from Palawan but 500 miles distant from China. Vietnam and Malaysia objected the very next day. Indonesia, though not a South China Sea claimant, filed protest last year. Phl, closest of all to the Spratlys where it holds nine islets and acknowledged owner of Recto Bank, tarried. Only now is Phl moving.

Phl is trying to catch up, Strategic Planning and Communications Sec. Ricky Carandang confirmed. And there’s a reason for it. Phl in fact is repairing the damage inflicted by the past administration’s reckless ties with China. Specifically, he mentioned the joint marine seismic undertaking (JMSU).

The JMSU is said to be the most shameless act of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. (Opinionists stated during its exposé that it overshadowed her 2004 presidential election rigging and her abetting of jueteng vice lords.) In late 2004 Arroyo authorized the Philippine National Oil Co. CEO, only two days on the job, to sign with the Chinese counterpart a survey of the South China Sea. Ostensibly it was in keeping with the 2002 ASEAN-China accord of cooperation in disputed waters. There was a catch. Four-fifths of the 142,886 square kilometers to be explored were not in the disputed Spratlys, but within Phl’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone under the UN Law of the Sea. One-sixth was within internationally recognized Phl boundaries, in the Recto Reef near Palawan’s Malampaya natural gas field. By labeling the coverage as “disputed,” Arroyo in effect invited China to lay claim to it. Which China did, through its “nine-dash line” declaration of 2009.

The JMSU illicitly was kept under wraps by virtue of a non-disclosure proviso. Not even the protests of Vietnam, which belatedly was taken in March 2005 as third party, made the Arroyo regime talk. Only at the height of congressional questioning of the Chinese-funded NBN-ZTE deal was it exposed, in March 2008. It turned out that the JMSU constituted not only treason in giving away Philippine territory and natural resources, but also plunder. China gladly lent Phl $2 billion a year up to 2010 when Arroyo stepped down. From 2004 to 2010 Arroyo and subalterns signed 65 projects with China, all financed by padded loans. (Whistle-blowers like Jun Lozada said each Chinese deal had at least 20-percent kickback.) Among these were for the Northrail, Southrail, NBN, and mysterious projects like the lease of a million hectares of farmland, and the award to telecom firm ZTE of gold mining rights in Mount Diwalwal and North Davao.

Lawyers and diplomats denounced the JMSU as unconstitutional. It broke the Charter provision against exploration and exploitation of natural resources by aliens. It was in the form of an international treaty, yet was never submitted to the Senate for ratification. Arroyo released $5 million a year as Phl contribution to the three-year seismic study, with no appropriation from the House of Reps. If plunder was tough to prove in the $400-million kickbacks from the $2-billion annual loans, there still was graft. For, the JMSU was grossly and manifestly disadvantageous to the Phl government. Phl never got a copy of the JMSU final report, having failed under another onerous proviso to renew by July 2008. The JMSU also damaged PH ties with ASEAN, for it broke ranks with the members instead of abiding by the pact to deal as one with China. Arroyo escaped questioning because protected by bribed allies in Congress.

At any rate, part of today’s damage repairing is the buildup of coastal security, Carandang said. Instead of buying from the US the usual military materiel for ground warfare, the Armed Forces are talking of radars and such. Phl also has protested China’s six military incursions in the Recto Bank, in a pitch to be heard worldwide. Ruffled ties with ASEAN are being ironed out, to resume the linked-arms approach to China’s expansionism. At the same time, China is being assured that Phl, while asserting its ownership of the Recto Bank, is employing diplomacy and economics to ease tensions over the Spratlys. And the government is conducting an information drive to explain to Filipinos that the Recto Bank is indisputably theirs. Part of this precisely is the use of the local title Recto instead of the British exploration’s Reed Bank. And the return of the term Western Philippine Seas to refer to that part of the South China Sea within Philippine territory.

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