OVER the weekend, mainstream media was abuzz with what seemed like the perfect story that supposedly happened on April 9 to highlight the Filipino’s bravery resisting foreign invaders.
The coincidence was uncanny. The said incident just had to happen on that day, Araw ng Kagitingan, the holiday that commemorates the fall of Bataan and Corregidor honoring brave Filipino soldiers fighting Japanese invaders during World War 2.
And this was the incident: ABS-CBN reporter Chiara Zambrano and her TV crew were conveniently on a “fishing vessel” that day in the disputed area of the South China Sea and they happened to ran into a Chinese Coast Guard vessel which, according to Zambrano, chased them away from the area.
Of course, this incident immediately made the six o’clock news and to further play up the “bravery” of Chiara Zambrano and her crew, emphasis was placed that the “chase” was also joined by two Chinese missile attack craft.
A perfect Araw ng Kagitingan story – a brave ABS-CBN journalist armed only with her camera and beaming with “nationalism” standing up against the Chinese bullies armed with missiles. That is if the story is true.
Are we going to take this “hook, line and sinker” or with a grain of salt? Take note that it’s ABS-CBN and they have an axe to grind against President Duterte blaming him for their failure to renew their franchise, and a story like this immediately puts him in a bad light.
The flashpoint, of course, is the so-called West Philippine Sea created by an administrative order by then President Noynoy Aquino which has no legal bearing and neither recognized internationally. The area is still officially known as the South China Sea.
Excerpts from the Feb. 8, 2021 article by Rigoberto Tiglao in www.manilatimes.net:
We may not even have a West Philippine Sea, since President Benigno Aquino 3rd’s administrative order giving that name to the waters off the western side of the Philippine archipelago implicitly stipulated that a big part of it is the EEZ, which however really has a phantom existence at this time.
Yes in theory, we have such maritime areas, since we ratified the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1984, which stipulated that the EEZ “shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines.”
But we have to have a domestic law to affirm that international law, which is the UNCLOS. This would specify the geodesic coordinates that define the EEZ. Furthermore, the documents for this would have to be submitted to the UN that would circulate it among its members to determine if it complies with the UNCLOS and does not encroach on EEZs and territorial seas of other countries. The necessity for such a domestic law is also obvious in that UNCLOS merely specified the maximum distances for the EEZ and territorial seas from the baselines.
We haven’t passed such a law defining our territorial sea and EEZ. Officially, therefore, we do not have an EEZ or even a territorial sea which we can demand our neighbors to respect. We would be just like somebody declaring that he owns this land, yet he cannot produce the court titles to it.
That we don’t have an official map of the Philippine EEZ and its territorial sea is not my speculation, but a declaration by the agency solely authorized by government to issue official maps of the country, including its maritime areas, the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA).
I received an email last Jan. 22 by the head of its hydrography branch, Antonio Valenzuela Jr:
“We regret to inform you that we do not have an official Philippine map indicating the territorial sea, EEZ and other maritime zones since we are still waiting for the maritime zones bill to become law. The Maritime Zones Law will be our basis in preparing the official map.”
There you go. Just like the defunct Negros Island Region or NIR, the “West Philippine Sea” only exists in the imagination of Noynoy Aquino and the rest of the “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon”.
So you want us to go war against China over those ABS-CBN reporters? Did anybody bother to ask if they baited the Chinese vessel to chase them?
All this brouhaha about ABS-CBN reporter Chiara Zambrano on a boat being chased by a Chinese Coast Guard vessel in the South China Sea seems to be missing a tiny important ingredient: where’s the footage of the actual chase?
Walking around Iznart and JM Basa streets in Iloilo City, one can’t help but notice that it’s completely overrun by Chinese-looking people so the rumors are true they have taken over the country. Those fishing boats are just a diversion. They’re already here. Chiara Zambrano, you’re in the wrong place. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com)/PN
