There is no official record to prove that the Philippine government has promised to remove the grounded BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal, contrary to a statement issued on August 7 by China’s Foreign Ministry.
China has insisted that Ayungin Shoal (Ren’ai Jiao to the Chinese) is part of its territory, a claim made on the basis of the “nine-dash line” policy, which was invalidated by the July 12, 2016 decision of the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration on the maritime case lodged by the Philippines during the administration of the late President Benigno S. Aquino III.
China’s statement came two days after the incident at Ayungin Shoal, where Chinese Coast Guard and militia vessels fired water cannons at Philippine Coast Guard vessels escorting boats delivering supplies to Filipino troops in the West Philippine Sea.
“In 1999, the Philippines sent a military vessel and deliberately ran it aground at Ren’ai Jiao, attempting to change the status quo of Ren’ai Jiao illegally. China immediately made serious démarches to the Philippines, demanding the removal of the vessel. The Philippines promised several times to tow it away, but has yet to act. Not only that, the Philippines sought to overhaul and reinforce the military vessel in order to permanently occupy Ren’ai Jiao,” the statement from China’s Foreign Ministry said.
However, Jonathan Malaya, National Security Council Assistant Director General said, “There is no record or any minutes of a meeting or any formal report or any legal document, legally enforceable document or otherwise, or a verbal agreement” to prove that the Philippines made the promise to remove BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal.
Malaya added that “we have not [signed] and will never sign or agree to anything that would in effect abandon our sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the West Philippine Sea, in particular Ayungin Shoal precisely because it is located in our exclusive economic zone, it is part of our continental shelf and that fact was affirmed by the 2016 ruling of the Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague.”
He said the Foreign Ministry’s claim is a fiction, noting that “even if we look back at past media reports, you would not see that kind of agreement being discussed.”
“We have no idea what they are talking about. I have talked to our colleagues from the Department of Foreign Affairs, even the ones from the Department of National Defense from the previous administrations. There was no commitment, whatsoever, as far as the Philippines is concerned and there is no record of any such commitment,” Malaya said in an interview over ANC on Tuesday, August 8.
Professor Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines’ Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, called China’s claim that the Philippines had made a promise to remove the grounded BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal a “lie and gaslighting.”
The Philippines currently occupies nine features in the disputed Spratly Islands. These are Rizal Reef, Patag Island, Melchora Aquino Cay or Panata Island, Kota Island, Lawak Island, Parola Island, Ayungin Shoal, Pag-asa Island (the largest and with the only Philippine airstrip in the Spratlys), and Likas Island.
Ayungin Shoal is near Mischief Reef or Panganiban Reef, which the Chinese occupied in 1995 and has since been fortified.
Both Mischief Reef and Ayungin Shoal are within the country’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf as affirmed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016.
As with all our other reports, MindaNews welcomes leads or suggestions from the public to potential fact-check stories. (H. Marcos C. Mordeno / MindaNews)
