WE ADD our signature to the censure raised Sunday by the Philippine Coast Guard on China for imposing a “new order” in maritime areas outside its jurisdiction, which undercuts the rules-based international system.
PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, Commodore Jay Tarriela disclosed the Chinese Coast Guard threatened to take “necessary measures” against the PCG’s vessel, BRP Cabra, if it refused to leave waters off Zambales.
CCG vessel 3103 was spotted operating illegally 93 nautical miles off the Zambales coast, a province of the Philippines, and in all important respects within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.
“[T]heir threats against the legitimate presence of the Philippines conducting maritime patrols – warning that if we do not leave, they will take necessary measures and we will bear the consequences – clearly indicate China’s desire to impose a new order that undermines the rules-based international system,” Tarriela said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
The act of this giant neighbor is a flagrant indifference and lack of heed as regards international law, asserting jurisdiction over intelligibly Philippine waters.
How would Beijing perhaps react if a Manila vessel in the former’s coastline threaten a Chinese vessel to leave or be the subject of “necessary measures” by the latter?
That, our dear Watson, is distorted logic, kind of mental shortcuts that refer to a way of thinking or reasoning that is flawed, twisted, or misrepresented, where conclusions are reached through faulty reasoning or by manipulating facts in a way that does not align with reality.
As Tarriela aptly said, the Chinese “appear intent on reverting to a system where might dictates what is deemed right, allowing powerful countries to impose their interests at the expense of others’ rights and jurisdictions.”
CCG’s presence in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone is verily, as Tarriela described it, “barbaric and illegitimate.”
Last weekend the CCG-3103, accompanied by the so-called “monster ship” CCG-5901, harassed the BRP Cabra by using a long-range acoustic device, which emits high-decibel sounds capable of causing severe pain and hearing damage, according to naval experts.
A day before that, the CCG and the People’s Liberation Army-Navy interfered with Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources vessels near Sandy Cay in the West Philippine Sea, still within Manila’s exclusive economic zone.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has since vowed to file a diplomatic protest – understandably the latest in scores of protest always ignored by China – following these incidents. We hope they do it with the speed of thunderclap.
We are glad Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro has underlined, in an interview on the program Battlegorunds, the Philippines will be compelled to defend itself against China’s unlawful actions in the country’s territorial waters to uphold its sovereign rights.
“What is being done to the Philippines is forcible stealing of its rights, sovereign rights, in the exclusive economic zone… [to which] the Philippines has the sole right to explore, exploit resources in, by China. And doing this… through muscle,” Teodoro said.
