Monday night is Harry Tambuatco on Global News Network's 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. program, "Politics Today: Talk News TV." Last time Harry had former Gloria Arroyo national security adviser and US Naval Academy graduate Roilo Golez, along with Philippine Military Academy (PMA) alumnus Nick Sotelo, the topic was China's "invasion" of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) or what history books — including those of the Philippines in the past — have called the South China Sea. In the week prior to the interview, the West Philippine Sea Coalition (WPSC) led by Golez had staged a rally in front of the People's Republic of China (PRoC) embassy in Makati. The best estimate of the attendance is between 400 and 500, including the "hakot" of Akbayan — this despite Filipino-American "patriot" Rodel Rodis' article "Stand up or kneel and beg for mercy" that called for 80,000 participants and the 5,000 Golez announced would attend.
In Tambuatco's "Talk to Harry" segment, Golez and the PMA old-timer kept raising the China bogeyman while lambasting the "Left" (not Akbayan but Bayan Muna et al.) for failing to protest the so-called incursions of Chinese maritime and naval vessels through WPS waters. It was a rational presentation of the platform of the WPSC and its criticisms of China's policy in relation to the WPS. One observer even said that which Golez had presented was both honest and correct in that the entire China Sea is a narrow body of water that can easily be closed off and constitutes a real threat to the free flow of goods and energy supplies to China. While Golez understands this, he fails to appreciate its significance in the concerns of the Asian superpower.
Considering the West's history of imperialism against almost every other country in the non-Western world through the past centuries and in view of the recent US "pivot" to Asia that saw the target deployment of troops, radars, and missiles to Australia just below the choke points into the China Sea, China's concerns cannot be simply brushed aside. While China has always declared that it is not averse to bilateral negotiations on joint exploitation of natural resources in disputed territorial waters, it is adamant in maintaining its sovereign claims to preserve its security perimeter.
As historian, Prof. Antonio Pangilinan of UP explained at our Diliman Book Club session last month, this is a form of the US Monroe Doctrine over South America.
Over and above the issue of security, what China and the Chinese people hold most dear (and inviolable) is the historical meaning of the sovereignty claim. No Chinese leader can ever appear to cede, yield, or lose this claim without suffering the unforgiving enmity of the 1.5 billion Chinese people. A claim is just an assertion until one acts physically on it, which is why all parties to the South China Sea dispute (i.e. Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and China) are acting on it by building immovable buildings and facilities. As for the Philippines, it maintains a few dilapidated shacks in some islands and one rust-scourged immobile ship in Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippines had two decades since Marcos to make serious moves to establish physical presence, but all that has been squandered.
Golez continues to stress the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLoS) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLoS) as if it these were written in stone. He even overarches their importance by asking, "How would China look if it does not respect the ITLoS proceedings?" or words to that effect.
The fact is, even the United States of America, upon which the likes of Golez look for support unabashedly, has not ratified the treaty and is neither a participating party in the UNCLoS nor in the ITLoS.
Moreover, the ITLoS, like many international tribunals, is far from being bias- and politics-free. China has thus rejected the proceedings and waived its right to name a representative to the ITLoS panel, where the current president is Japanese while panel members are all European. Golez rails against China's various ships traversing through waters claimed by the Philippines and faults the Leftists for protesting only US ships' transgressions. But, of course, everybody else knows that the US, Britain, and their allies romp around the areas not only with ships (as evidenced by the USS Guardian in Tubbataha last January) but with vast numbers of drones as reports the past few days indicate.
Truth to tell, these waters are just peripheral territories; the real ones that matter are a nation's lands, its economy, and its society. The sad fact is, the US and its allies have occupied and still occupy the entire Philippines, along with its economy and resources — albeit behind the cover of "free trade," "globalization," foreign debt, the Philippine Stock Exchange, feudal and corporate dummies, the US-controlled Armed Forces of the Philippines flag officers and generals, and, of course, the corrupt political hierarchy.
As such, the opening of the country by the present BS Aquino III government and its blatantly pro-US foreign and defense secretaries to US and Japanese military and naval forces drops whatever pretense of sovereignty the US-occupied Republic of the Philippines still carries today.
(Tune in to 1098 AM, Tuesday to Friday, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.; watch GNN Destiny Cable Channel 8, Saturday, 8:00 p.m. and replay Sunday, 8 a.m.; join the Bay Leaf Manila Kapihan next Thursday, 10 a.m., with Greg Licaros; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com; and text reactions to 0923-4095739)
