UTTERLY amazing.

Nearly all mainstream media had as their banner headlines on September 1 the incidents at Escoda (Sabina) Shoal as "Chinese ships ramming Philippines vessels," as if the China Coast Guard captains woke up on the other side of the bed and rammed our vessels, for fun or irritated at the sight of Filipinos.

In reality, the CCG vessels rammed — the more accurate term would be "forcefully pushed," as the damage on the PCG vessels was minimal — the BRP Teresa Magbanua to drive it and other Filipino vessels away from Escoda Shoal in the Chinese leadership's exasperation over what it thinks was another US plot to portray it as a bully.

President Benigno Aquino III lost Scarborough Shoal to total Chinese control in 2012. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has lost Ayungin Shoal and now Escoda Shoal to complete Chinese control. His belligerent foreign policy toward China doesn't work. If he insists on it, we might be losing all the eight islands and one reef we are holding before he steps down.

His vaunted promise that he "will not lose an inch of the country" has proven to be a shamelessly empty one, just like many of his promises. If he can't get a single head roll because of the escape of the infamous Alice Guo, he should make heads roll among his military and Coast Guard leadership because of this momentous boo-boo that would have huge geopolitical repercussions.

Ironically, Escoda has never been a flashpoint in the Spratlys dispute. China claims it as part of its outlying archipelago called Nansha Qundao, this assertion having nothing to do with the so-called nine-dash line but more on the post-world war turnover by the defeated Japanese of these islands to its pre-war owners, the Chinese, as well as to its 1978 official declaration that these islands are part of Chinese territory. However, China had not been talking loudly about its claim over Escoda after 1995, when its buoys to mark it as part of Nansha Qundao were removed by the Philippine Navy. After all, nothing much is in Escoda: it's not a rich fishing ground, nor has it prospects for gas and oil beneath its waters.

Feature

Escoda wasn't even a feature in the Spratlys that the Philippines asked the arbitral tribunal in 2012 to rule as within our exclusive economic zone, contrary to the PCG's defective megaphone Jay Tarriela's lies. It is only the Marcos Jr. administration, in its blatant ignorance, which has loudly challenged the Chinese claims, insisting that Escoda is within our EEZ and, therefore, ours.

This is absurd: The EEZ concept was invented only by the treaty called the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), which took effect only in 1994. Furthermore, Unclos has absolutely no authority at all in determining sovereignty claims over both land and waters. It just wasn't created for that.

What's more absurd is that it was the Marcos Jr. government that all of a sudden sent its Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels to Escoda to assert Philippine "jurisdiction." The PCG sent its newest (launched 2021) vessel, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, on April 18 to Escoda, Officially, it was sent there to check reports that the Chinese were building an artificial island there, which was false.

In reality, our reckless military top brass planned for it to mark our sovereign claims, just as the Sierra Madre was grounded in 1999 to mark our claim over Ayungin Shoal.

The PCG ignored the Chinese demands for the Teresa Magbanua to leave Escoda since April. The Philippine leadership — or perhaps only its top military brass, following US directives — had this cockamamie scheme to replicate the Ayungin events of July, which was another American plot to portray China as a bully in the Spratlys.

Estrada

In the Ayungin episode, the Marcos administration broke an agreement with China made by the Joseph Estrada government to supply the BRP Sierra Madre that had been deliberately grounded there in 1999 (to mark the country's sovereign claims in the area) only with food and other essentials for the Marines stationed there. The Philippines promised not to supply it with supplies for the ship's repair — hence its extreme state of dilapidation. The agreement was actually a compromise. The Estrada government, for some reason, asked for some time to remove it; the Chinese agreed on the condition that it wouldn't be repaired.

The Marcos government, however, for some reason or perhaps to provoke China, broke the agreement and tried to supply the rusting ship with repair materials. The Chinese retaliated by blocking the PCG supply vessels and water-cannoning them, with a sailor even losing his thumb in one of these encounters, creating resistance against the operations that it was leading nowhere.

Ignorant of the agreement and, more importantly, of China's sovereign claims over Ayungin, media, both local and the US-controlled international media, condemned China's interdictions and echoed the American propaganda line that the superpower continues to be a bully. Indeed, since its 2012 "Pivot to Asia" policy, the US has been undertaking a massive propaganda campaign funded by hundreds of millions of dollars to portray the rising superpower as another Evil Empire, among other reasons to build up public opinion against it if ever the US wars with it when it tries to take over its rogue province, Taiwan.

In its ridiculous scheme, the BRP Teresa Magbanua in Escoda would play the role the BRP Sierra Madre played in Ayungin, which, after four months loitering at Escoda, needed to be "resupplied." The Chinese put their foot down and blocked the PCG's vessels attempting to supply the Magbanua with supplies, especially fuel, which had become critically low after four months. These resulted in the collisions between vessels of the two countries that the PCG cried about.

Magbanua

Unable to resupply the Magbanua through vessels, the Philippine military managed to supply it by having a helicopter parachute the supplies, including fuel. Refueled, the Magbanua sailed, but not on a path leaving the shoal.

When the Chinese noticed this, it had its China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels undertake maneuvers to push it out of the shoal, three of which collided with the Magbanua. As of this writing (2 p.m., September 1), the Magbanua isn't moving but near the shoal's end, according to a PCG source. CCG vessels have surrounded it, with the Chinese continuously blaring through megaphones to leave the shoal

There's no doubt that Magbanua will eventually leave the shoal, giving up on its leadership's ridiculous scheme on its own or forced by the CCG vessels. The PCG had gullibly believed the US assurances that it would escort their vessels through waters the CCG patrols, the latest of which was made August 28 by Samuel Paparo Jr., commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, after a courtesy call with President Marcos. The next day, though, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder denied that US ships would escort the PCG but that the US would "provide significant advisory support."

I bet US national security adviser Jake Sullivan — a representative of a lame-duck government — in his meetings August 27-28 with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and foreign affairs minister Wang Yi was given the clear message: "Escort those crazy PCG vessels, and we go to war."

Scarborough

As happened in the Scarborough standoff in 2012 and because of Aquino III's gullibility, Marcos kisses goodbye a claimed territory because of false American promises. The consequences of Marcos Jr.'s foolhardy attempt at physically claiming Escoda could be enormous.

China's geopolitical tactic has been to escalate its response after being threatened. Right after the Aquino 3rd government filed its arbitration suit against China in 2012, which, among others, it asked the tribunal to declare the reefs it occupies as illegally held, it went on an unprecedented reclamation work to turn these reefs into artificial islands with full-blown military installations. That significantly projected its military might from its mainland's coast a thousand kilometers away to the very center of Southeast Asia into the heart of the South China Sea. International resistance to this move was muted because Chiana claimed it was only responding to a threat, even if only at the level of lawfare.

China could undertake massive reclamation on Escoda Shoal to build an artificial island with military fortifications, on the justification that the Philippines has attempted to occupy the area, which would complement the US base (under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement) in Balabac island just 200 kilometers away and the Antonio Bautista Air Base in Puerto Princesa, just 245 km away, both in Palawan.

The bungling of this administration seems boundless, and as in the case of Aquino III, blunders affect even the global geopolitical situation.

Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao

X: @bobitiglao

Website: www.rigobertotiglao.com

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