Much ado with Spratlys

There is so much talk about the claims of the Philippines on the Kalayaan Group of islands, internationally called Spratlys which is claimed by more than three nations across the South China Sea. The Philippines has laid claim on the Spratlys during the time of former President Ferdinand Marcos who named it the Kalayaan group of islands and included it in the provincial administrative coverage of Palawan. The act of Marcos was through a Presidential decree and not an act of congress ever since and until now.

When I was studying for my MA in Foreign Service from the esteemed Lyceum of the Philippines University, I came to met at the Ambassador’s residence, His Excellency Wang, former Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines to discuss about Spratlys as it is part of my diplomatic research paper undertaken in one of classes. It took us two hours to openly discuss about Spratlys. I brought nothing to back my claims about Spratlys but still, I wanted to know what were the bases of the Chinese government to lay claim on the entire South China Sea, not only the Spratlys. He brought out old maps, old historical written documents done by Chinese scholars long time ago. They said their ultimate basis is historical rather than geographic. Ours is geographic.

Now, because we claimed the Spratlys due to geographic considerations, let us now explore what we have so far to back our claims on the Spratlys. I remembered former Chinese Ambassador Fu Ying, when asked about the claims of the Philippines on the Spratlys, responded by showing a locally-made map of the Philippines which she bought at the National Bookstore and pointed that if indeed the Philippine government owns the group of islands, why is it that it was not included in the Philippine map? I checked it, she is right. I have not seen a new map but most of the maps I have seen about the Philippines did not include the Spratlys there. The original discovery of the Kalaayan group of Islands came about when the shipping admiral Tomas Cloma accidentally found several atolls in the South China Sea which at that time, inhabited and claimed it by placing a Philippine flag. At that time, placing a national flag makes someone owns an island especially if it is inhabited. Admiral Cloma went to Malacanang and talked to former President Garcia about it. Garcia failed to established legitimate claims over the islands and atolls however, the Cloma doctrine became symbolic in our claims on the Spratlys even until now. Until now too, Congress has not passed vital legislation to include the Kalayaan Group as legitimate islands of the archipelago by institutionalizing the Cloma doctrine. This is the nearest we could get as to our claims on the island.

Due to the advent of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), discussions about territorial waters were lengthily deliberated, including a legalese definition as to what constitute a coastal state and an archipelago. Accordingly, the Philippines have 200 mile exclusive economic zone from its original 12 mile baseline provision the separates national with international waters. When I did my research, when we computed the 200 mile EEZ, we can go claim half of Taiwan and half of Borneo, Sabah. That is how illogical it was and Taiwan too has overlapping claims with us since they are also entitled to the 200 EEZ. Indonesia and Malaysia too have overlapping issues. Now, the UNCLOS has been so technically flawed that the implementation of the convention has not been widely encouraged.

What we need to claim the Spratlys then? We need the baseline law as well as a law that delineates our borders and define us as an archipelagic state. Our common mistake is that we lay claim on something we have no firm hold of. First, our claims based on UNCLOS have not been so conclusive. Second, we have not included the Spratlys on the Philippine map which means something to the Chinese and the other claimants but we stationed AFP there. Third, we have not baseline law. Fourth, technically, we are not an archipelagic state because there is no law passed by Congress that says we are. We considered our country archipelago by sheer geographical construct but we have no law about it. Until now, we can not say that the waters that separates every island within our territory is our national water. I raised it so because we have not established boundaries which island, province, city, municipality or barangay can claim territorial claims over such waters as embodied in a law and where international waters come in.

This is a very technical issue that can not be easily understood using ordinary layman perspective. We need to study very hard before we lay claim on the islands that we do not technically own. We say that the Spratlys is owned by the Philippines, and then what are our bases? Do we have historical proofs of our ownership? Our senators have been busy talking about the Joint exploration project in the Spratlys but they have failed to pass vital legislative act that will ensure that what we are so noisy about now will really be ours in the future. They have not even started debating on the baseline law. They have missed the mark now, but hey, what made them think critically now when they were not in the first place. They are only good in political grandstanding and media mileage.