Manila Times columnist Rigoberto D. Tiglao has echoed China’s claim that the Philippines had an agreement with Beijing to remove the BRP Sierra Madre from the Ayungin Shoal in the disputed West Philippine Sea, even if the Chinese government could not produce proof of such an agreement and Manila had denied there is no official record pertaining to it.
This was contained in his column published on Dec. 18. In that article, Tiglao described as fake news the reports by various Philippine media outlets that the presence on Dec. 13 of several Chinese fishing vessels indicated an “invasion,” although he acknowledged those vessels “could be deputized as a naval militia in case they’re needed in some conflict.”
Tiglao was alluding in particular to a report published by manilatimes.net and the inquirer.net that were based on satellite images taken by Planet Labs and supplied to Philippine media by Ray Powell, SeaLight director at the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.
He then went on to narrate, based on his own recollection, the circumstances leading to the Chinese occupation of Ayungin Shoal and nearby Mischief Reef.
As for the grounding of Philippine vessels at Ayungin Shoal, Tiglao recounted:
“Arguing that a commissioned ship technically is ‘Philippine soil,’ Estrada’s (referring to then-President Joseph Estrada) military deliberately grounded an LST near Bajo de Masinloc and the BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal in 1999.
“The Chinese protested furiously and informed the Estrada government it was an insult as China’s Premier Zhu Rongzi was scheduled to undertake a state visit to the country a month later. Estrada’s foreign secretary Domingo Siazon, who was closer to the president than (then Defense Secretary Orlando) Mercado, was then on a campaign to get the Philippines closer to Beijing, as Estrada had wanted, as he had long believed in the leftist history of the US as an imperialist power.
“Siazon got Estrada to stop Mercado’s operations. The Philippine Navy, however, dilly-dallied and got to remove only the grounded vessel at Bajo de Masinloc. Siazon told the Chinese to put the issue out of media attention and promised to remove the Sierra Madre. To prove this commitment, Siazon agreed that the Philippines would supply the marine contingent on the ship only with food, water and medicine. It would not supply it with construction and other materials that would have prevented it from rusting and sinking into the sea. This explains the very pathetic dilapidated state of the Sierra Madre.” [emphasis supplied]
Tiglao, however, did not cite any official document or any other evidence to prove that Siazon had made such a commitment on behalf of the Philippine government.
Last August 14, Tiglao also wrote that the Philippines did promise to remove BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal.
On August 7, China’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement that Manila was “yet to fulfill” its promise to tow away the BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal.
“In 1999, the Philippines sent a military vessel and deliberately ran it aground at Ren’ai Jiao, attempting to change the status quo of Ren’ai Jiao illegally. China immediately made serious démarches to the Philippines, demanding the removal of the vessel. The Philippines promised several times to tow it away, but has yet to act. Not only that, the Philippines sought to overhaul and reinforce the military vessel in order to permanently occupy Ren’ai Jiao,” the statement said.
China’s statement came two days after the incident at Ayungin Shoal, where Chinese Coast Guard and militia vessels fired water cannons at Philippine Coast Guard vessels escorting boats delivering supplies to Filipino troops in the West Philippine Sea.
However, Jonathan Malaya, National Security Council Assistant Director General said, “There is no record or any minutes of a meeting or any formal report or any legal document, legally enforceable document or otherwise, or a verbal agreement” to prove that the Philippines made the promise to remove BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal.
Malaya added that “we have not [signed] and will never sign or agree to anything that would in effect abandon our sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the West Philippine Sea, in particular Ayungin Shoal precisely because it is located in our exclusive economic zone, it is part of our continental shelf and that fact was affirmed by the 2016 ruling of the Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague.”
He said the Foreign Ministry’s claim is a fiction, noting that “even if we look back at past media reports, you would not see that kind of agreement being discussed.”
“We have no idea what they are talking about. I have talked to our colleagues from the Department of Foreign Affairs, even the ones from the Department of National Defense from the previous administrations. There was no commitment, whatsoever, as far as the Philippines is concerned and there is no record of any such commitment,” Malaya said in an interview over ANC on Tuesday, August 8.
The following day, August 9, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. also belied that there is an agreement between the Philippines and China to remove BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal, contrary to the latter’s claims that the Philippine government earlier promised to remove the military vessel.
“I’m not aware of any such arrangement or agreement that the Philippines will remove from its own territory its ship, in this case, the BRP Sierra Madre from the Ayungin Shoal,” Marcos said.
The President made the remarks after the Chinese government renewed its call on August 7 for the Philippine government to remove the BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin shoal, which has been on the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone since 1999 and has been the country’s symbol of sovereignty rights and jurisdiction.
The chief executive added that he is repealing any commitment should there be an existing agreement between the Philippines and China on the supposed removal of the BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal.
“And let me go further, if there does exist such an agreement, I rescind that agreement now,” Marcos said.
Professor Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines’ Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, called China’s claim that the Philippines had made a promise to remove the grounded BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal a “lie and gaslighting.”
China has insisted that Ayungin Shoal (Ren’ai Jiao to the Chinese) is part of its territory, a claim made on the basis of the “nine-dash line” policy, which was invalidated by the July 12, 2016 decision of the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration on the maritime case lodged by the Philippines during the administration of the late President Benigno S. Aquino III.
The Philippines currently occupies nine features in the disputed Spratly Islands. These are Rizal Reef, Patag Island, Melchora Aquino Cay or Panata Island, Kota Island, Lawak Island, Parola Island, Ayungin Shoal, Pag-asa Island (the largest and with the only Philippine airstrip in the Spratlys), and Likas Island.
Ayungin Shoal is near Mischief Reef or Panganiban Reef, which the Chinese occupied in 1995 and has since been fortified.
Both Mischief Reef and Ayungin Shoal are within the country’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf as affirmed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016.
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MindaNews is a verified signatory to the Code of Principles of the International Fact-Checking Network.(H. Marcos C. Mordeno / MindaNews)
