INQUIRER EDITORIAL: PAWN IN POWER
PLAY
[PHOTO -Schoolchildren and
their parents are seen inside the newly opened Pag-Asa Elementary School.
Philippine officials have opened a small kindergarten on a South China Sea
island that is also claimed by five other governments
(Photo: AP)
MANILA, JUNE 29, 2012
(INQUIRER) Predictably, China has again engaged in
saber-rattling and warned the Philippines against the latter's decision to open
a public kindergarten on Pag-asa in the Kalayaan island chain off the province
of Palawan.
Hong Lei, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said that
Beijing "opposes any illegal activity that may infringe on China's sovereignty,"
according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.
Hong said Manila should "refrain from taking any measure that will
complicate and exacerbate the current situation and affect peace and stability
in the South China Sea." But isn't China itself exacerbating the situation?
By commenting on Pag-asa's five-pupil kindergarten, which is purely internal
to the Philippines as far as we're concerned, China "internationalizes" the
matter and makes of a perfectly innocent thing a pawn in geopolitical power
play.
Moreover, China's statement betrays doublespeak. While Hong said he hoped
"relevant countries will abide by the spirit of the Declaration on the Conduct
of Parties in the South China Sea," which China and the 10-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) signed in 2002, he asserted that his country had
"indisputable sovereignty" over the Spratly islands and their surrounding
waters.
China conveniently ignores that the Philippines controls Pag-asa and that
Filipinos live on the island which is part of the municipality of Kalayaan.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has asserted that "the Kalayaan group of
islands, which includes Pag-asa, is an integral part of Philippine territory as
declared in Republic Act No. 9522 and other relevant Philippine laws." As
President Aquino's spokesperson Edwin Lacierda put it, China can say whatever it
wants but it should not make Pag-asa an issue because "the municipality has been
there" for a long time "and it's never been questioned."
The Philippines has been exercising effective jurisdiction over Pag-asa since
1971; the establishment of a kindergarten is merely a reaffirmation of that
fact. Pag-asa has a town hall, a health center, an airstrip and a naval station,
among other infrastructure.
The Philippine military occupies several of the Kalayaan islands that the
country claims are part of its territory. In contrast, China has built a number
of military facilities that it claims are there to provide shelter for its
fishers. But there's much debate about whether or not they're fishers. As
evident in Panatag Shoal off Zambales, the fishers are actually poachers,
raiding marine sanctuaries and hauling off endangered species.
Simply put: There must be a way of forwarding one's claim of sovereignty and
jurisdiction over contested territory in ways less harmful to the environment.
If indeed the kindergarten in Pag-asa is designed to advance that claim, then
it's a less debilitating way of doing that than giving free rein to poaching. In
fact, education must be a key to enlighten minds and alert them to the dangers
of environmental depredation.
The Philippines has advanced diplomatic initiatives to settle the disputes
over the Spratlys. During the Asean summit in Cambodia last April, it asked the
regional grouping to take the lead in resolving the dispute in the West
Philippine Sea, and to bring the Spratlys claimants together toward "a
rules-based, multilateral and peaceful resolution of the issue." Central to this
would be the drafting of the Code of Conduct among the claimants. The United
States supports the planned Code of Conduct.
Filipinos are pursuing education and development to consolidate their claim
over Pag-asa and other islands.
They're also turning to art.
What may get China's dander is the announcement that one of the movies in the
Director's Showcase of the Cinemalaya festival of independent cinema this month
is about Pag-asa: its title, quite appropriately, is "Kalayaan."
It was shot by director Adolfo Alix Jr. right in the Spratlys and stars Thai
matinee idol Ananda Everingham.
Since Alix has won awards in the international film festival circuit (he was
listed by the Hollywood Reporter in its "Next Generation Asia 2010" as among the
top 20 young entertainment personalities in Asia deemed "the best and the
brightest among their peers" from a vast region considered "the world's biggest
entertainment market"), and considering further that Everingham has an
international following, "Kalayaan" will surely be shown abroad.
Then the world will further know about the situation in the Spratlys. The
dispute will be further "internationalized" and the Philippine claim humanized.
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2012 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
All
rights reserved
PHILIPPINE
HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE [PHNO] WEBSITE
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/phnotweet
This is the PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE (PHNO) Mailing List.
To stop receiving our news items, please send a blank e-mail addressed to: phno-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Please visit our homepage at: http://www.newsflash.org/
(c) Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
-------------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phno/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phno/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
phno-digest@yahoogroups.com
phno-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
phno-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
PH Headline News Online. Copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved