Category: ayungin

Maliwanag, hindi “misunderstanding”…

Finally, a call for government to take the bull by the horns, deal boldly and decisively with China’s unprovoked attacks on our supply and repair missions to BSP Sierra Madre, among their other disgraceful depredations in our EEZ. It’s worth noting that FVR’s DILG Sec Raffy Alunan does not mention America at all, as if to say, let’s not count on them. The odds are against us, yes, but it’s about self-respect and national dignity.

The Philippines is under attack

By Rafael Alunan III

THE China Coast Guard mauled our Navy SEALs last week, who were sent in harm’s way with their hands tied. That prevented them from retaliating to “avoid escalation.” Salamabit, elite operators who are taught to fight and win, were humiliated in the process! It will embolden China all the more to escalate its attacks that have already injured our personnel and damaged our assets in our EEZ since last year. That happened alongside the BRP Sierra Madre at Ayungin Shoal. It had no protective cordon. What’s to prevent China from seizing the ship the next time around? It can be easily overpowered.

Will new rules of engagement be issued? Will a joint force be dispatched to protect our ship and shoal? Will our boys be able to defend themselves when attacked again by life-threatening weapons? Will we call for continuous maritime exercises in the area with allied forces? Will we replace the Sierra Madre, preferably with a larger one in good shape, and declare it as an EDCA base? Will we move forcefully to neutralize its POGOs, criminal syndicates, pre-positioned fifth columns and local collaborators? When will its maritime forces illegally occupying our EEZ and territorial waters be finally ejected?

The ROE should be crystal clear: Defend when attacked. Declare a 12-mile exclusion zone. If the Chinese breach it, fire warning shots to deter it. If they come closer, disable the threatening vessels. If they return fire, destroy the targets. But I worry about the fundamentals like OPSEC, strategy, doctrines, plans, communication, coordination, real-time situational awareness, decisiveness, intestinal fortitude, and crisis management. I hope this is taken constructively — our most potent weapon, the brain, is underused. We’re outthought, which is why we’re easily outmaneuvered and outfought. Our soldiers and the nation don’t deserve this.

The Chinese are gloating on their social media. “The conflict at Ren’ai Reef (Ayungin Shoal) on June 17 was a humiliation for the Philippine monkeys. The monkeys are a regular army belonging to the Philippine Navy Special Operations Group, NAVSOG. Their Instagram account calls themselves the Philippine Navy SEALs. This time, facing the Chinese Coast Guard, that is, the Chinese police force, they actually had their boats breached, their guns confiscated, and their boats seized. And seals? They are not even sea dogs.”

Let’s be clear. It’s the Chinese alone who are escalating the creeping invasion of our homeland, the occupation of our EEZ, and its attacks on our men and vessels with impunity because we choose to just stand by and show restraint. The world already knows who the aggressor is but is wondering why we haven’t moved to stop China’s humiliating abuses. We occupy the moral high ground to defend ourselves. Enough is enough. And, by the way, there’s no point in sticking to a “one China” policy when it doesn’t respect our sovereignty and sovereign rights. Bilateral relations are reciprocal, not a one-way street.

In August 2016, Chito Sta. Romana and I joined former President V. Fidel Ramos to help “break the ice” with China shortly after the favorable arbitral ruling was handed down. As the years passed, China’s treatment of the Philippines went downhill, from feigned friendship to patronizing to condescending to coercing to harming. It’s been dribbling the ball on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea because it’s seen as running counter to its “core interest” to be the next superpower. It demands from us subservience and foolish restraint while it keeps tightening its grip. It’s time to show some teeth.

Two days after China’s law to confront and arrest trespassers came into effect on June 15, our Navy SEALs were mauled right beside the Sierra Madre. Our naïve attempts to demonstrate peaceful intentions have had no effect on China. It has successfully blurred red lines and gray zones that we’ve been slow to comprehend. The gray zone in the West Philippine Sea, especially around Ayungin, Sabina and Panatag Shoals, now has a much darker hue. China appears intent on maintaining an escalatory path because it believes that we’re likely to just gawk and protest like monkeys, nothing more.

Apart from dispatching a joint force to protect the Sierra Madre, the president should order the immediate upgrading of all existing military infrastructure and war-fighting assets. Cybersecurity and anti-espionage must ramp up. We’re badly infiltrated and compromised. China knows what we’re thinking, saying and planning. Hot transfers of vital networks, systems and equipment should be obtained from friendly countries. The National Security Council (NSC) and Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) must be commanded to sustain legal and funding support. We’ve run out of time. We’re at the fail-safe point, and we must get ready to defend even if the odds are against us. It’s about self-respect and national dignity.

Here are other inputs for consideration:
1. Sanitize our communities, agencies and institutions of enemy agents.
2. Upgrade the Human Security Act and all laws linked to it to global standards.
3. Legislate a War Powers Act to enable the chief executive to fully protect the country.
4. Set up an Emergency Broadcasting System.
5. Stockpile essential commodities like food, medicines, tools, spare parts, etc.
6. Firm up civil defense for the safety, security and survival of our communities.
7. Redeploy OFWs from China, Hong Kong and Macau to other countries and here at home.
8. Downgrade diplomatic relations.
9. Ban tourist travel to Chinese territories.
10. Expand local defense-related manufacturing and services.

China has triggered so much anger and distrust that there’s no hope for normalization at this point. It’s been waging war for years that has reshaped the nature of warfare to gain a strategic advantage over the West. In our case, it’s because we occupy strategic real estate and refuse to bow to its ill will. It’s time to grab the bull by the horns. Politics must take a back seat to national security and defense. Our national interest must come first. Countries whose interests converge with ours are allies. However, allies should be seen as force multipliers, not as the country’s main defenders. That responsibility is ours. [Emphasis mine]

Rafael M. Alunan III served in President Fidel V. Ramos’ Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior and Local Government. He is a trustee of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations.

Atin ang Ayungin!

`ATIN ITO’:  The birth of active citizenship
Randy David

The English translation “This is ours!” doesn’t quite specify the addressee. But the original Tagalog “Atin Ito!” does—it is addressed to Filipinos. As Edicio dela Torre, one of the leaders of the new advocacy group “Atin Ito Coalition” makes clear, this is a call to deepen Filipinos’ awareness of the contentious issues surrounding that portion of the South China Sea (SCS) we call the West Philippine Sea (WPS). China claims “indisputable sovereignty” over almost the entire SCS, including many features that are several hundred miles away from the Chinese mainland.

With growing awareness and understanding of what is at stake in that body of water we regard as part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the hope is that a new generation of Filipinos will learn to value their country’s patrimony and play a more active role in shaping and protecting the nation’s future. This is a goal that cannot be overstated, especially in a society that has tended to cultivate greater loyalty to family and clan than to the abstract entity called the Filipino nation. Not surprisingly, Akbayan is the lead convenor of this new movement, for active citizenship has always been its core advocacy.

In many ways, the coalition breaks fresh ground. It is the first time since the Japanese Occupation that a Filipino nationalist movement is directed not against the United States or its puppet regime but against an Asian power. Atin Ito! actively supports the Marcos government’s opposition to Chinese aggression. More significantly, it shows that it can work closely with the country’s defense establishment in the pursuit of a shared goal—the assertion and protection of the country’s maritime rights in the SCS.

No other progressive group that has been a mainstay in anti-government protest movements has dared to take such a move. Working with state forces even on a limited basis has never been in the DNA of Filipino social movements. Doing so is fraught with risks, not the least of which is how to maintain the movement’s autonomy and credibility while pursuing effective areas of cooperation and resistance in the face of a bullying foreign power.

This is an improbable relationship that has been forged on the anvil of many ironies. The spokesman of the new coalition, the former radical priest Ed dela Torre, once headed the Christians for National Liberation, an underground organization that had links with the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines. He was detained for six years in the jails of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the father of the current president.

Many leaders of Atin Ito! cut their activist teeth in the historic movement to kick the American bases out of the country, culminating in the 1991 Senate vote to reject a new bases treaty with the United States. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, no activist seriously believed the claim that the Philippines needed the American bases in Subic and Clark as a deterrent to Chinese aggression in the SCS. That was a different time. Given its own internal problems, China then was in no position to be an aggressor. In contrast, the US bases had been the main driver of American intervention in Philippine affairs and a source of unceasing irritants between the Philippines and its former colonial master.

Following the departure of US troops from Philippine soil, the country’s defense now became its own responsibility. Yet, notwithstanding President Fidel V. Ramos’ program to allot to military modernization the bigger portion of the wealth unlocked by the bases’ conversion to civilian use, there was no urgency to upgrade the country’s defense capabilities. Our military’s dependence on US assistance was so chronic that new agreements had to be devised to allow American troops to return to the country without violating the letter of the Constitution. With that intent were the Visiting Forces Agreement and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreements conceived.

China, in the meantime, was quietly building its military power to match its phenomenal economic growth. Far from projecting its ambition to become a military superpower, however, it peddled itself as an eager player in the global capitalist system. Before long, it became the destination of choice of foreign companies that sought to maximize profits while freeing themselves from their countries’ restrictive labor and environmental laws.

All that changed when Xi Jinping became the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and concurrently the chair of the Central Military Commission in 2012, and China‘s seventh president in 2013. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Scarborough Shoal standoff, the first serious confrontation between the Philippines and China, happened in April 2012, soon after Xi became China’s “paramount leader.”

The Atin Ito! coalition acknowledges the futility of engaging China in the military arena. But, by providing the Filipino youth concrete opportunities and occasions to reach out to and manifest their solidarity with fisherfolk and frontliners in the WPS, the movement aims to raise a generation that values peace but does not cower in fear before a foreign bully.

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