Last of two parts
DOES territorial animosity exist between the Philippines and China?
Commodore Jay Tarriela roars: “Ang West Philippine Sea ay atin. Ito ay mananatiling atin hangga’t nag-aalab ang diwa ng bansang Pilipinas.” (The West Philippine Sea is ours. It will remain ours so long as the spirit of the Philippine nation burns.)
Cite any occasion on which China and the Philippines warred with each other. You find none. Although one account had the Ming dynasty exercising suzerainty over sections of Pangasinan, no known records of any belligerent relations between China and the Philippines exist. On the contrary, historical accounts abound detailing not just friendly but brotherly relations. From the 16th century all the way to the 19th, Chinese traders and artisans called sangleys dominated Philippine commerce and industries and were indelible features of the Philippine economy. In the centuries-long struggle of Filipinos against Spanish colonialism, the sangleys provided every moral and material assistance, not the least of which being their own lives and safety.
In the Philippine struggle against the Japanese invasion in World War II, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas had a Chinese Bureau to help Filipinos fight the invaders.
On the issue of the West Philippine Sea, I insist in using the term as a way of not forgetting the fact that it is an American invention.
The first time I ever heard the term was in 2011 when on the deck of the USS Fitzgerald docked on Manila Bay, then-US secretary of state Hilary Clinton led in the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) between the United States and the Philippines. Calling that portion of the South China Sea “West Philippine Sea,” Clinton dared, “Anyone has a right to a claim but no one has a right to make that claim through force and intimidation.”
And as if by a machination set to full throttle, the West Philippine Sea issue raged from then on.
Now, it increases in intensity accordingly as Tarriela flaunts it.
Certainly, Tarriela is not acting on his own. In a previous column, we cited an account that a Trump-Tarriela tandem on the West Philippine Sea is not an unlikely scenario.
US President Donald Trump has unraveled unabashed atrocity with his kidnapping of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro as a way of gaining control of Venezuela’s largest oil reserves.
Trump will not hesitate to display such shameless atrocity in ultimately engaging China in the needed warfare to stay the US’ historically mandated downfall.
China has been exercising extreme circumspection and restraint to effectively combat this US move, proposing cooperation instead of confrontation. Grown wise through decades of its own spoilage by the West, China should know that everything the US does is buy time for its ultimate objective of crushing China.
It is a fact that there is the MDT to justify US involvement in any Philippine armed conflict with China. But it is pure naiveté to presume the US needs the MDT to start warring with China.
Time and again, the US has shown its propensity to come up with false flags by which to justify any war it wishes. The fact that it has not begun any armed confrontation with China only shows that it is not ready for it. It behooves China to permanently maintain this US unreadiness.
Both the Taiwan tension and the West Philippine Sea conflict are US machinations for testing how China would react. And quite correctly, China has risen to the challenge, signaling its readiness to meet the US head-on anytime it wishes.
That has been the most effective deterrence to any US military adventurism in the region.
Whether in the Taiwan tension or in the West Philippine Sea conflict, their intrinsic characteristics will determine US action.
In this respect, the widely promoted pro-China stand of the Duterte camp is an interesting piece of study.
Without anybody noticing it, this notion which increases accordingly as the Tarriela anti-China noise resonates nationwide could be working out a reverse psychology for the masses.
For favoring China, the Duterte camp necessarily counters the United States. But what everyone forgets is that such a stand is within the context of international relations.
The Duterte pro-China stand does not at all represent a Philippine national sentiment. It simply states a position on the United States-China geopolitical rivalry.
Quite the opposite, on the issue of the West Philippine Sea, being pro-China is necessarily being anti-Philippines.
A very simple assertion by Sen. Rodante Marcoleta to just give up the Kalayaan Island Group (pointed out in this column as peopled only by 460 residents) stirred up national rage that left the senator overstretching legalese to get out of the gauntlet.
And that precisely pictures how the United States has been maneuvering to drum up support for its push of the Philippines’ warring with China.
What is supposed to be against America, in practice ultimately turns out to be in its favor.
And that must be true of the Duterte camp in Congress. By persevering in their pro-China stand, they actually serve the American strategy of pushing the Philippines to war with China.
When will such a war take place?
And how?
Events are shaping up.
Vice President Sara Duterte will be absolved in her impeachment trial.
But she will be convicted in her graft and plunder case at the Ombudsman’s Office.
What if at this point, the MILF suddenly erupts in defiance of the regime change that removed MILF commander Murad Ebrahim as chief interim minister of BARMM ?
Would not Sara and Murad mutually find a common cause to strike up a modus vivendi?
Remember that the separation of Mindanao from the Philippine republic was almost a fait accompli in 2008, when the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) peace negotiations with the Philippine government resulted in an agreement on the establishment of a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE), having full sovereignty over the region, with the Philippine government only retaining 25-percent share of Mindanao’s natural resources.
The BJE was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
In 2012, another attempt was made to put the BJE into place, this time named Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro (CAB), but this was watered down to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) — still part of the Philippine Republic — largely at the behest of the chairman of the Senate committee on local government, then-senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
We don’t know what arrangement the Duterte camp has with the Muslim leaders of Mindanao. What we know is that Sara’s father is on record of having called for the “independence of his home region, Mindanao, from the Philippines...”
So, there appear two large forces in Mindanao undeniably exhibiting a common front against the Marcos government.
There remain a 14,000-strong MILF combatants in active commission. According to one account, Murad had withheld the disbandment of these troops as agreed upon due to the government’s noncompliance with various terms of the agreement.
For instance, keep Murad interim chief minister of BARMM. He has been replaced by Abdulraof Macacua, a Marcos preference.
In Mindanao, war hasn’t quite ended.