PRESIDENT Duterte is at it again, coming up with a wimpish stand in our dispute over ownership of territories in the South China Sea. He is in Singapore for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meeting and, when asked by reporters if he opposes military drills in the South China Sea, he said, “It’s not military drills because I said China is already in possession. It’s now in their hands. So why do you have to create frictions?”
Fact check: China is not in possession of the South China Sea. Here’s what Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said in response yesterday, according to a rappler.com report:
“China is in physical possession of the entire Paracels, seven geologic features in the Spratlys, and Scarborough Shoal. These geologic features, and their territorial seas, constitute less than eight percent of the total area of the South China Sea. Factually, China is not in possession of the South China Sea.”
I have not seen my uncle Leonito for many years now. This was the uncle who, when he was still an officer of the Philippine Marine Corps visited me during my incarceration at the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center in 1987 and so impressed the warden the latter got soft on me and prodded me to leave immediately when a release order for me was later issued not knowing it was a faulty document.
I would have asked my uncle for his views on the Duterte administration’s policy in the South China Sea. He has long retired from the Armed Forces but I am sure he would have compelling ideas on the matter considering that as a young lieutenant he was once tasked to lead a group of Marines that guarded one of the uninhabited islets in the Kalayaan group in the South China Sea.
What I remembered as a child growing up were stories of my uncle’s assignment in the Kalayaan group. There was one photo whose image has stuck in my mind until now: that of him and his companions, one of whom sat on the back of a big turtle, in an islet surrounded by hundreds of birds. The place was a nesting ground for turtles and a resting ground for birds.
Only grasses grew on the islet, thus the Marine contingent was exposed to the sun during the day for the duration of their stay there. No wonder that my uncle, who was fair skinned, was tanned when he went home. I could just imagine their months of enduring the heat during the day and the coldness of the night, and of course, the loneliness (cell phones weren’t invented yet).
Losing one’s mind happened during their deployment, all because the then regime of Ferdinand Marcos didn’t want us to be caught napping. Among the other claimants of the said territory was Vietnam (my uncle didn’t talk of China so its interest there then wasn’t as intense as now).
When they got impatient when the arrival of their replacement was delayed, my uncle ordered the harmless firing at a passing Vietnamese warship and when it stopped they radioed to the headquarters in the Philippines claiming they were attacked—a tactic to force their superiors’ hand. They were ordered home later.
To surrender our claim to South China Sea territories is unfortunate considering the blood, sweat and tears our soldiers spent guarding them.