Sierra Madre stays, Recto Bank ready for drilling

Looking back on my blogposts on China, I found in this one “our china relations, our u.s. alliance” a quote from Rodel Rodis‘s “What did Erap and GMA promise China?” (originally posted 9 years ago, sometime 2014, last edited 14 March 2021):

… on March 17, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei revealed in a press conference in Beijing that two previous Philippine presidents had made an “unequivocal commitment to China ”that the Philippines would tow away the Sierra Madre from the Ayungin Shoal. China demanded that Pres. Aquino “heed the promises” made by his predecessors otherwise, Hong Lei warned, the Philippines risks losing its “credibility”.

Fastforward to August 2023 when, upon China’s “reminder” that the Philippines had promised to tow away the BSP Sierra Madre from Ayungin, the question was, who made such an “unequivocal commitment”? Not Erap, said Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. Not me, said GMA.

Easy to believe them and disbelieve China that is known to make false claims especially about Philippine territory.  Jarius Bondoc suggests we move on, start drilling for gas and oil sa Recto Bank, now na, before Malampaya dries up.

Drill Recto gas, oil now for our national survival
Jarius Bondoc

Pointless to speculate which of two pro-China presidents promised to remove BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. already rescinded such deal, if it existed at all.

Just drill oil and gas at Recto (Reed) Bank. Do it now, or suffer economic collapse.

Malampaya offshore gas field will dry up by next year; 2027 at the latest. It fuels 40 percent of Luzon’s electricity. With no replacement for Malampaya, Luzon will suffer daylong blackouts.

That’ll be disastrous. Factories, offices, shops, telecoms, trains, schools, hospitals, hotels, restaurants, cinemas, churches will close. No work or classes from home either. Foreign investors will leave. Jobs will vanish. Urbanites will flee to provinces for scarce food. Linked to Luzon, even Visayas’ power grid will be disrupted.

Recto has proven reserves. In 2013 the US Energy Information Administration estimated it to hold 5.4 billion barrels of oil and 55.1 trillion cubic feet of gas. That’s 63.5 times more oil and 20.5 times more gas than Malampaya, whose lifespan is only 24 or so years.

“We’ve long known that,” says Benny Gan, retired petroleum geologist of the Department of Energy’s precursor, Office of Energy Affairs. In the 70’s OEA explored Recto’s Sampaguita field, only 250 feet deep. “It’s the main study in a roomful of reports, photos and videos.”

Recto is 120 miles from Palawan, well within the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone. It’s 650 miles from Hainan, China’s nearest province, thus outside its EEZ. The Hague arbitral court affirmed that in 2016. China can’t claim it by imagined “nine-dash line.”

Although China snubbed the hearings, it’s bound by The Hague ruling under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Its state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. has no right to drill there.

CNOOC cannot subcontract to private exploration firms, retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio says. Shell, Occidental, Exxon, among others, are bound by international law, so will shun CNOOC.

The Philippine government has long awarded Service Contract-72, covering Recto. Manuel V. Pangilinan’s PXP Energy Corp. and subsidiary Forum Energy Ltd. are ready to drill.

Trespassing Philippine EEZ, Chinese gunboats chased Forum’s vessels away several times. In 2020 the Duterte admin contemplated joint exploration with CNOOC. Talks failed as CNOOC’s terms violated Philippine Constitution.

Forum remobilized foreign partners to drill. President Rody Duterte stopped it after receiving a call from Beijing, Carpio recounts. “Twice Forum lost millions of pesos in false starts. Let it proceed now under Philippine Navy protection. National survival depends on it.”

Beijing anticipates drilling resumption. Its naval and coast guard ships, reinforced by maritime militia trawlers, are massing up at Del Pilar (Iroquois) Reef at Recto’s westside. Same at Escoda (Sabina) Shoal eastside. It wants to drive away the beached BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal inside Recto.

Defy China. “Let’s do it the way Malaysia and Indonesia did two years ago,” Carpio proposes.

Beijing also claims Malaysia’s EEZ and Indonesia’s Natuna Isles. Invoking our Hague ruling as support, Malaysia held naval exercises with the US and Australia while drilling oil nearby. Indonesia invited a US aircraft carrier to sail by while drilling in Natuna.

On both occasions Beijing shrieked about owning the entire South China Sea by historical right. Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta ignored it. They’re reaping benefits from their petroleum resources, Carpio notes.

The Philippines can install rigs while holding drills with the US Navy under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. As well, with the British Admiralty because Forum was incorporated in London. A petroleum-sufficient Philippines will ease world demand and prices.

Beijing will avoid military confrontation, Carpio calculates. An attack on Filipino government vessels escorting Forum drillers will trigger the Phl-US Mutual Defense Treaty. China Communist Party’s National Congress and Politburo have decided to take control of SCS by intimidation, not war.

“Oil and gas from Recto will save our economy,” Carpio says. “Let Beijing howl. We’ll have our fuel. What better way to assert our EEZ sovereign rights!”

Sampaguita field can pump petroleum via pipeline 150 kilometers northeast to Malampaya. The latter can in turn pump to Batangas in mainland Luzon via its existing 504-kilometer pipeline.

“If not for us circling Malampaya, China would have annexed it long ago,” a ranking PN officer confides. In 2020 a Chinese warship aimed weapons at a PN patrol there. “We’re ready to defend Recto too,” another admiral assures.

Upon operationalizing Sampaguita, other sovereignty measures can follow:

• Erect an Ayungin lighthouse to replace disintegrating Sierra Madre. The 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct among SCS disputants bars military buildup. A civilian lighthouse is allowable, says geopolitics expert Renato de Castro, PhD.

• Sue China for damages at The Hague or the International Tribunal for Law of the Sea. The Philippines and Forum can compute opportunities lost from China’s menacing since 2007, says international maritime lawyer Jay Batongbacal, PhD.

• Exact recompense for China’s fish poaching and destruction of reef resources, like rare metals and new medicines, at Escoda, Del Pilar and Recto. Also, for concreting nearby Panganiban (Mischief) Reef into an island-fortress since 1992.

The late foreign secretary Albert del Rosario had totaled it at $662 million per year. Assisting him, marine scientist Deo Florence Onda, PhD, calculated the wrecked resources at $353,429 per hectare per year, based on the 2012 Studies on Global Ecosystems by Dutch firm Elsevier, world leader in scientific-technical-medical information.

Ninoy & the Marcoses #40years

On this 40th death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino, it was good to wake up to these words from President Marcos Jr., even if only for the record.

I stand united with all Filipinos worldwide in commemorating the Ninoy Aquino Day. By standing for his beliefs and fighting for battles he deemed right, he became an example of being relentless and resolute for many Filipinos.

In our purposive quest for a more united and prosperous Philippines, let us transcend political barriers that hamper us from securing the comprehensive welfare and advancement of our beloved people.

What’s interesting is that the article ends with a video clip of a BBM interview by Anthony Taberna (date unknown) titled “Did your father order Ninoy killed? No, says Bongbong”.

Not surprising naman that Marcos Jr. said no, his father did not order the killing, not to his knowledge anyway. What surprises really is his pahabol.

BBM. … Nung nakuha namin yung balita we were having… Sunday yon, nagla-lunch kami, and habang kumakain kami, tinawag siya sa telepono. Pagbalik niya, sabi niya, pag-uwi ni Ninoy, binaril siya. … Siguradong magkakagulo.

For the record din lang, all documented accounts have it that Marcos was then very sick after a failed kidney transplant and was confined in the Palace Guest House that had been transformed into an “impromptu hospital.” Si Imelda naman was about to have lunch with Chitang Nakpil, JV Cruz, and others at the Gloria Maris @ the CCP complex when she got the call from Gen. Ver about the killing and forthwith they all rushed to the Palace.

In August 2004 it was Imee Marcos who reminded that it was “a known fact that my father was extremely ill that time” when Ninoy was assassinated.  Which was to insist that Marcos could not have ordered the killing because he was too sick, but which does not necessarily mean that he didn’t have anything to do with it, considering that it was members of Fabian Ver’s AFP that were found guilty of the double murder.

In any case, this could also be just another He-said-She-said drama that the sibs like to engage in, probably meant only to muddy the waters some more. So what else is new.

China’s repolyo strategy @Ayungin Shoal

Ano nga ba ang nakikinitang endgame ng China sa pagharang nito sa ating mga bangkang maydalang pagkain, tubig, atbp. para sa 8-man contingent ng BRP Sierra Madre, military outpost natin sa Ayungin shoal, na teritoryo natin, hindi ng China.

Noong 2013, a year after the Scarborough scandal, ito ang sabi ng isang Maj. Gen. Zhang Zhaozhong ng China’s People Liberation Army kay Jeff Himmelman ng New York Times Magazine.

He described a “cabbage strategy,” which entails surrounding a contested area with so many boats — fishermen, fishing administration ships, marine surveillance ships, navy warships — that “the island is thus wrapped layer by layer like a cabbage.”

… Of taking territory from the Philippines, he said: “We should do more such things in the future. For those small islands, only a few troopers are able to station on each of them, but there is no food or even drinking water there. If we carry out the cabbage strategy, you will not be able to send food and drinking water onto the islands. Without the supply for one or two weeks, the troopers stationed there will leave the islands on their own. Once they have left, they will never be able to come back.”

Dagdag pa ni Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, director of Asia-Pacific programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace:

Nothing in China happens overnight. Any move you see was planned and prepared for years, if not more. So obviously this maritime issue is very important to China.” https://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/27/south-china-sea/index.html

Fast forward to 2023. According to the AFP’s early July air patrols, there was a swarm of more than 50 Chinese “fishing” vessels in the vicinity of Sabina Shoal, not far from Ayungin. Na nadagdagan pa noong August 5, nang i-water-cannon ang ating Coast Guard.

In the Aug. 5 incident, there were additionally some 12 Chinese militia vessels aside from the six Chinese Coast Guard  ships in the area, according to AFP Western Command chief Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos. “These fishing vessels are really militia… they seem to be working (and) taking orders from the Chinese Coast Guard.” https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2023/08/11/2287783/afp-eyes-maritime-militia-wps 

Five days after the water-cannon affront, the West Philippine Sea was still aswarm with mostly Chinese vessels.

CARLOS. … as far as the entire WPS, based on our last monitoring, close to 500 or more than 400. But that is just an estimate because there might be duplication of sightings,” he said.

Last monitoring was just yesterday on August 10, in Mischief Reef alone, there were 191. Around 85 percent are Chinese vessels,” he added.

Ito na mismo ang repolyo strategy at work: pinapalibutan, binabakuran, ng China ang Ayungin ng sapinsaping mga bangka at barko  ng mga mangingisda kuno, pero marine surveillance ships at navy warships sa totoo.  Layers of boats and ships pretending to be loaded with  fishermen, na papalapit nang palalapit sa BRP Sierra Madre. Ang goal ay malinaw: ma-takeover ang Ayungin nang walang putukan, as in, takutan lang, with water cannons and laser threats and the like. Gray zone tactics that the U.S deems below the threshold of military warfare.

‘Ika ni Ray Powell, director of SeaLight at the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University:

… China operate[s] in the “gray zone” by carrying out actions just below what might be considered acts of war but that achieve the same result — Beijing gaining territory or control without firing a shot.

… The Sierra Madre is visibly rusting away, it is becoming structurally unsound. At some point it will begin to breakup and otherwise become uninhabitable.  At which point china’s strategy works because all they have to do then is sort of ‘rescue’ the poor Philippine sailors off the shoal because they’re the only people around.

And then they will control the shoal.

Unless something changes, that is what will happen. It’s just a matter of when it will happen.

WHAT NOW

Matagal nang pahirapan ang pagpaparating ng supplies at repair materials sa BRP Sierra Madre. Ang tanong ngayon: Is China revving up for a full-court press kumbaga, as in, wala nang supplies na palulusutin?

Ayon kay Manny Mogato ng PressOne:

China has been waiting for the ship [BRP Sierra Madre] to collapse but the Philippines has been trying to save it by reinforcing it with cement and steel.

On Aug. 5 … The Chinese Coast Guard accused the Philippines of bringing in construction materials to BRP Sierra Madre, blocking the boats and using a water cannon to prevent the vessels from getting near BRP Sierra Madre.

One of the wooden boats made it though. The shallow waters around BRP Sierra Madre prevented the large Chinese vessels from following it. The other boat left after evading too much pressure from the water cannon.

Sa palagay naman ni Alex Magno ng PhilStar:

This [Aug 5] incident is not an accidental one.

This will be the standard Chinese tactic from hereon. They will try to disrupt every resupply mission, hoping that we eventually throw up our arms and decide it is too costly to maintain that small detachment on Ayungin.

China has initiated a severe test of wills. They will continue to cram the waters they claim with Coast Guard and “militia” vessels. All these prowling vessels will try to intercept every Filipino vessel that moves into what they claim is their territory.

At heto ang reaction ni Ex-Foreign Affairs Sec., now PH Ambassador to the UK, Teddy Locsin sa August 10 pahayag ni AFP Chief of Staff Romeo Brawner Jr. na balak ng gobiyernong mag-deploy ng naval reservists sa West Ph Sea.

TEDDY LOCSIN. We’re gonna need gunboats—more of ours out there, the higher risk of misencounter triggering the Mutual Defense Treaty—and ending its vacuities. Brawner is right; we gotta be all over the arena so our only military ally knows it isn’t a shadow play. A war for real is coming. 

Yes. A war for real. Without shades of gray. Because Ayungin is ours, #AtinAngAyungin, no ifs or buts.

*

A Game of Shark and Minnow

‘Little blue men’: Is a militia Beijing says doesn’t exist causing trouble in the South China Sea?

AFP eyes maritime militia in WPS 

Philippines should take action vs. China’s ‘gray zone’ tactics —experts 

Water cannon incident confirms Chinese fishing vessels are militia – WESCOM 

‘Creeping invasion’ — Walk the talk, Gibo tells China 

Scarborough Shoal and the Spratlys in ancient maps

Between America and China…

Notes on Lea Salonga and on “Here Lies Love”

No debate — Lea is right to be wary of strangers. Her fans should not take it personally.

What IS debatable is the charge that she is a “Marcos apologist”, first raised in 2016 when BBM was contesting Leni’s win as VP, apparently based on her replies (in social media) regarding her “stand on the Marcoses”.

LEA. They have always been kind to me and my family. … I will not disrespect them. … If not for that part of my life (I sang a lot in the palace for foreign guests since I was 10 until I was 14) I probably wouldn’t have ever dreamed I could make it as a performer abroad. I can’t ever look back upon it with regret. If nothing else, every presentation showed how beautiful our fashions were, and how talented our artists were.  https://i.redd.it/dkfitkzqs, f11.jpg https://i.redd.it/dkfitkzqslf11.jpg 

Lea was simply speaking the truth of her personal experience of the Marcoses back in the early 80s. By the time she started  performing in the palace at age 10, she was already singing and acting on stage (The King and I, Annie (title role), The Sound of Music, atbp. with Repertory Philippines) and guesting on TV shows. No doubt her exposure to and participation in Imelda’s high-end affairs that were always world-class went a long way in preparing her for the Ms. Saigon auditions and playing the title role, no less, sa West End UK and Broadway NY. But does it mean she is blind to the abuses of the Marcos regime?

LEA. In celebrating the good, I don’t ignore the bad. The good and bad are part of the whole truth. The abuses should not ever be forgotten. … When you’re 10 and sheltered, you know what you know. And then you discover more as you grow. … I only learned more the older I got. As with everyone else. … I do not doubt the truth about the Martial Law experience for many of our countrymen. That would be spitting on history.  https://www.gmanetwork.com/entertainment/showbiznews/news/23075/read-lea-salongas-opinion-about-the-marcoses-create-buzz-online/story

Fast forward to a July 6 2023 Playbill interview with Lea in the run-up to the re-staging of David Byrne’s Imelda musical “Here Lies Love” that she co-produces and where she plays Ninoy Aquino’s mother Doña Aurora.

PLAYBILL. Salonga vividly remembers Aquino’s death, the news coverage of it in the Philippines as well as his face on all the magazines afterwards. As part of her research for the role, Salonga spoke to Aquino’s brother-in-law Ken Kashiwahara. “[Aurora] was the one who had to make the decision to have his body on display,” says Salonga. “So that left such an indelible mark on so many people, and then just sparked an awakening in many folks from home.”

Salonga was 15 [during the People Power Revolution] … she remembers her parents making food at home and packing it into containers. “I remember my dad driving out to send it to whoever he could reach. Just to keep people on the street,” recalls Salonga.

To play such an important figure of recent Filipino history, it’s a task that Salonga describes with a deep intake of breath and a deepening of her voice, “Ohhh! It’s a lot.”
 https://playbill.com/article/lea-salonga-and-arielle-jacobs-know-that-here-lies-love-is-controversial-but-they-stand-by-it

Unfortunately, “Here Lies Love” is said to be too kind to Imelda.

RUBEN CARRANZA. David Byrne’s attempt to humanize Imelda Marcos insults the impoverished people she and her family stole from. And because it is playing at a time when the Marcoses have lied their way back to power, ‘Here Lies Love’ will only reinforce those lies and serve, intentionally or not, the larger Marcos agenda of denying truth and revising the history of their dictatorship.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/theater/here-lies-love-background.html

GINA APOSTOL. The effect of Here Lies Love is comic, benumbing, discordant, enthralling. The disco ballads, oozing Imelda’s rags to riches tale, underline the damaged psyche that held a country in its hair-sprayed grip for 20 years. They’re songs of a broken party girl whose megalomania leads to vicious, unforgivable murder — effects of dictatorship. But after the mayhem, as we know, and as the play notes, Imelda remains beautifully coiffed, unjailed. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dancing-dictators/

LUIS FRANCIA.  Imelda actively took part in governing the country, and had been named by Ferdinand as his successor in the event of his death. Wags always said that the country had His and Hers governments. It was this and her attendant notoriety that drew Bryne’s attention in the first place. Beyond superficial nods to political events such as the declaration of martial law (“Order 1081”) and the imprisonment of Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino (“Seven Years”)–the Marcoses’ most celebrated political opponent, whose assassination in 1983 eventually led to the demise of the regime—there is no sense of the public and political context that shaped Imelda, a grievous omission that undercuts Here Lies Love’s attempt to investigate what as well as who made Imelda what she is.  https://web.archive.org/web/20220818071905/https://thefanzine.com/when-disco-was-the-soundtrack-to-martial-law-david-byrne-fatboy-slim-and-imelda-marcos/

ERIC GAMALINDA. One can only offer so much detail on the long and convoluted saga of the rise and fall of the Marcoses. But in a narrative of breakneck speed (90 minutes), Imelda becomes the true heroine: complex, flawed, and brought down by hubris — almost Grecian in her tragedy. During one number, when she sang, “It takes a woman to do a man’s job,” the audience actually exploded in applause.

In the end, as Imelda shrinks from the glare of helicopter lights overhead, you still see her as a victim of circumstance. Her final song, “Why Don’t You Love Me,” is the anguished bellow of a lost soul, unable to comprehend the fate handed to her, when all she wanted was to “spread love.” https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/theater/inventing-imelda-review-here-lies-love-broadway/

But all that’s on Byrne, not Lea.

That Lea plays not Imelda but Doña Aurora places her on the right side of history.

The next challenge is to bring “Here Lies Love” to Manila, where it all happened. To some extent, staging it in the U.S. is easy and safe: that audience will always see it from a certain distance. Staging it in Manila would open it, us, up to a different set of discussions, about our history and its telling, the personal and the political, and the role that culture plays in nation’s search for meaning.

Here lies the nation that gave birth to “Here Lies Love”. We are the audience it deserves. And with the Marcoses back in power, there is no better time than the present.