Fiasco

We might have lost Scarborough Shoal last Tuesday, the day the President ordered the pullout of Filipino ships from the contested territory. That was the last in a string of errors that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

The two Filipino ships sustaining the standoff with a whole fleet of Chinese ships withdrew on direct orders of the President due, ostensibly, to inclement weather.

There is basis for fear of inclement weather. In the sixties, we used to have the most powerful navy in the region because we had an old destroyer inherited from the Americans. In a region that then had only patrol boats, this was a majestic vessel — so majestic it encouraged our leaders to nurse dreams of regional domination and the recovery of claimed territory by force.

Alas, a typhoon sunk that majestic warship. In, literally, one gust of wind, we lost our naval superiority — and with that, our imaginings of regional dominance.

Possession of a warship, no matter how old, seems to have a way of getting into the minds of leaders. Recall that Argentina once acquired a limping aircraft carrier, an asset that encouraged them to invade the British-controlled Falklands. In the ensuing war, the impressive and obsolete warship was sunk by a single French-made Exocet missile. With the loss, Argentina retreated into minor-power status. Global sales of the French missile boomed.

A bit of trivia: the shoal gets its name from a British ship that ran aground in the shallows and sunk two centuries ago.

This spat at Scarborough Shoal began soon after we acquired a small warship from the US that was destined for scuttling. That small vessel soon became the flagship of our Navy and was promptly sent out to chase Chinese fishermen in the contested shoal. The incident produced the predicament we are now in.

After the President ordered our ships withdrawn, someone from the DFA said this was part of an agreement with China for mutual withdrawal of vessels. The Chinese were surprised by this announcement. No trace of that “agreement” could be produced.

If we did not announce the withdrawal of our vessels in the first place, there will be none of the useless debate now going on about whether we should redeploy them. Talking too soon, or too much, is not always fruitful.

Needless to say, China not only retained its naval presence in the shoal but went on to reinforce that with aerial patrols. There are reports they might have sent in engineers to look into the feasibility of building permanent structures in the place.

One unduly excited radio commentator said the Chinese started drilling for oil in the shoal. There is neither gas nor oil in the area. An oil drill will require more massive machinery that what is present there now. The greater likelihood is that engineers were making small drills to test the feasibility of putting up structures there.

If we needed to withdraw our vessels, perhaps for resupply, there was no need to announce it. There was no need for the President to publicly order it. All the needless chatter only set the stage for diplomatic embarrassment.

It was needless chatter that set us up for the string of errors in the handling of the Scarborough issue.

After our newly baptized BRP Gregorio del Pilar chased Chinese fishermen at the shoal (without getting anyone of them), the President promptly delivered another one of his homilies about the inviolability of Philippine sovereignty. That unnecessary homily pulled the sovereignty genie out of the bottle — to which it can never be returned.

For years, sovereignty over the shoal was relegated to the backburner because it was irresolvable. It was more productive for our bilateral relationship with China to not talk about it. Since we started talking about it, China is now compelled by both national interest and national pride to overtly control the shallows.

After that, the President continued talking, invoking the matter of the shoal as an ASEAN concern — without first winning a consensus in this very discreet regional association. Our partners in the regional association could barely hide their irritation.

Then somebody from the administration announced that we were taking China to the international court — even if Beijing rejects the proposition. That was such a stupid statement to make: it is basic in international law that arbitration can begin only when both parties agree to submit to the process.

When the “2 Plus 2” meeting between US and Philippine foreign and defense secretaries happened in Washington, the Palace chatterbox went into full gear, priming our public for forthcoming American support against China. Washington, of course, was in no mood to further complicate its relationship with the second largest economy in the world by entertaining our bluster.

 Besides, Washington’s policy is to keep the strategic sea lanes astride Scarborough strictly international waters and always open to innocent passage. Japan, because a lot of its shipping happens on this route, obviously agrees with the US position. True to form, Tokyo has maintained a very polite silence on this noisy dispute between Beijing and Manila.

This needless controversy poisoned our relationship with what is clearly the most important economy in shaping our progress.

When China tightened the screws and rejected our bananas, the President bravely observed we can always sell our bananas to Singapore. But how many Singaporeans are there to consume our bananas?

Let’s hope naming our impressive flagship after a brave, young revolutionary general was not too prescient. Gregorio Del Pilar, we all recall, was assigned to defend an indefensible position — and died doing so.