On July 12, those who care to remember will celebrate the first decade of the much-ballyhooed ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague—the case filed by former president Benigno Noynoy Aquino against China over the ownership of certain islets, shoals and reefs in the South China Sea.
Believers of Aquino’s West Philippine Sea (WPS) are again happily touting the so-called victory of the Philippines in the Arbitration court, which is just a panel of judges who really did not make an honest-to-goodness arbitration because China refused to participate.
A day before the commemoration, or on July 11, the Stratbase ADR Institute and Australia (of course, with the US behind them) held a forum at the Manila Polo Club in Makati entitled “9th Year of the Arbitral Victory: Defending the rules-based order through reinforced defense capabilities and partnerships.”
The announcement said the day-long event was “by invitation only” (translation: exclusively for the elite believers). They say the country is pursuing a two-pronged strategy to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity in the WPS.
They really think that there is a strong resolve among Filipinos to defend the country’s national interest, as validated by survey groups such as the Social Weather Station.
What is concerning is this group’s contention that the rules-based order they are trumpeting should be founded on a key component that is defense-oriented.
They promote strengthening national defense and deepening collaboration among military, academic, and policy experts to reinforce maritime security and uphold the rule of law in the region.
Although Albert del Rosario was now just a memory, his ilk continues to drive home the tale that the country’s aggressive stance against China—which started when President Bongbong Marcos wholeheartedly embraced the US political line and rejected his predecessor’s independent foreign policy—is good for the nation.
The lineup of their speakers tells it all: the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela, the commander of the PAF Air Defense Command, the inspector general of the Philippine Navy and spokesman for the WPS, the AFP spokesperson, De la Salle’s Renato de Castro and other La Salleans, and the great US propagandist, Col. Raymond Powell.
One need not listen to their speeches to know that they are selling the idea of further deterioration of relations with China, something that the nine years of the Arbitral ruling has promoted. Nothing can be more hawkish than that.
It is even horrifying that the poster announcing the event on Facebook and other media shows a map of the Philippines with 22 points where the military facilities of the United States are located.
These are areas protected by the defunct EDCA, those that they call “agreed locations.”
To many of us, these are just magnets of attack by any foreign power whom the US has declared war against.
The Philippines should never again involve itself in a war that is not intrinsically its own. Even the Constitution is explicit on that.
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