MARCOLETA FLUNKS ELEMENTARY CARTOGRAPHY
Marlen V. Ronquillo
… The West Philippine Sea is for real. Philippine laws have codified a specific area called by that name, and maps have been drawn to reflect. In 2012, then-president Benigno Aquino III issued Administrative Order 29 that demarcated the West Philippine Sea as “the Luzon Sea, as well as the waters around, within and adjacent to the Kalayaan Island Group and Bajo de Masinloc, also known as the Scarborough Shoal.”
A law signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in November 2024 — Republic Act 12064, or the Philippine Maritime Zones Act — defined anew the portions covered by the West Philippine Sea. That law also asked the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority to prepare the corresponding map covered by that sea, then circulate that map in the country and beyond.
In her many warnings about China’s territorial ambitions in Southeast Asia, former United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton spoke about real threats faced by an area she called “the West Philippine Sea.”
The West Philippine Sea is a fact of nationhood, its existence amplified by the 2016 arbitral ruling that essentially said areas officially demarcated by the Philippine government under AO 29 and RA 12064 are, indeed, Philippine territory.
What accounts for Marcoleta’s refusal to recognize a basic fact of law, international ruling and cartography, the lay of the land in a nation of which he is a citizen and senator? That’s between Marcoleta and China. But to obviously take the side of China’s fictional nine-dash line over our historic and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea-validated West Philippine Sea is beyond the pale. In nations and polities protective of their territories, a stand like Marcoleta’s will be grounds for a form of censure. In China, Marcoleta’s stand may fall under the category of treason and may end up like Lin Biao.
Some dear and basic lessons in geography and territory raise additional and troubling questions on why Marcoleta is seemingly on China’s side on the West Philippine Sea issue. With all the land, seas, and vast dominion in its possession, China’s territorial aggression looks like overkill.
China’s map occupies 9.6 million square kilometers — approximately the size of Europe. In terms of land area, it is the third largest in the world, after Russia and Canada, and much of Canada is uninhabitable tundra. The Philippines is a land-short country the size of the US state of Arizona. China, according to basic geographical data, shares boundaries with 14 other countries, and territorial disputes often arise, especially with India, due to boundary issues.
It cannot be that Marcoleta is cutting China some slack because it needs more territory, and the Philippines should play the role of a generous neighbor.
Speaking of basic generosity, has China been a generous and economically supportive neighbor, an economic superpower with zero predatory practices in economic dealings with the Philippines?
No. On the contrary — and this can be validated by the loan terms during the term of former president Rodrigo Duterte — China has imposed high interest rates on loans to the Philippine government, about 2 percent or more higher than those from, say, Japan and the European Union. Former Bayan Muna party-list representative Neri Colmenares has a compilation of China’s harsh loan terms, including provisions that allow China to seize national treasures, such as Rizal Park, in case of loan defaults.
China overall has been imposing onerous terms on foreign borrowers. After a loan default, one Latin American country found out that China demanded 80 percent of its total oil output.
So while we trade heavily with China — the only countries that do not trade with it are the imaginary trading posts Donald Trump slapped with tariffs in his April 2, 2025, “Liberation Day” tariff order — we should not forget one thing: trade is one thing, territorial aggression is another. Areas like Bajo de Masinloc — Masinloc is a town in Zambales — have been ours since time immemorial. And for Marcoleta’s information, China’s nine-dash line is a late 20th-century concoction.
Facts and cartography and history and empiricism all say there is a West Philippine Sea. Marcoleta’s West Philippine Sea distractions, at the very least, are on the wrong side of history.