Moving on with Taipei

With extraneous issues no longer in the picture and emotions died down, the Philippine government has finally laid to rest the unfortunate shooting and killing of a Taiwanese fisherman in Balintang Channel. At least eight Philippine Coast Guard personnel led by their commanding officer Arnold de la Cruz were recommended to face homicide charges for the killing of 65-year-old Hung Shih-cheng. This was on the May 9 sea chase off Batanes when Filipino Coast Guard fired upon suspected poachers on board a fishing vessel where the Taiwanese fisherman was hit while hiding.

Nearly three months after the incident, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) finally released its official report and recommendations last Wednesday. The next day, Amadeo R. Perez, chairman of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO), flew to Taiwan where he brought this NBI final report and offered an “official apology” on behalf of President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III.

Although our country has no official relations with Taiwan, the Philippines maintains people-to-people and trade contacts. The Philippines is among those countries observing the one-China policy, or the international practice of treating Taiwan not as a state but just a province of the People’s Republic of China (PROC).

These unofficial contacts are conducted through MECO and its counterpart here is the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO). The MECO is an attached agency under the Office of the President.

Agitated by their politicians, enraged Taiwanese folks have attacked innocent Filipino migrant workers in Taipei and Philippine flags burned at their rallies to dramatize demands for justice in the alleged “murder” of their countryman. At the height of bitter and emotionally charged rhetoric coming from Taipei, TECO representative in Manila Raymond Wang was recalled to Taiwan.

The very amiable Wang has been active and effectively been promoting warm and close ties of Taiwan with the Philippines until that unfortunate incident. Now that the national leadership of Taiwan has accepted the NBI final report and subsequent actions taken by the Philippine government, Wang would hopefully return soon to Manila as part of this normalization process.

With obvious blessings from Malacañang Palace, NBI director Nonnatus Rojas called for a full-blown press conference and released to media the 85-paged NBI report.  Rojas turned over to Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Leila de Lima the NBI final report as the basis of criminal information that will be filed against all the accused before DOJ state prosecutors.

The next day, Malacañang expressed the support of President Aquino to the NBI report and recommendations for concerned government agencies to undertake the appropriate actions. Apparently, however, the presidential review and approval have long been given to the NBI report on Balintang Channel incident more than a month ago.

In the July issue of Esquire Magazine where he appeared as its featured cover story, President Aquino disclosed he was fully briefed by the DOJ Secretary of all the implications of the actions they will take based on the NBI report.

“When I asked Secretary De Lima for an opinion… well, the lawyers call it a brief, but it is anything but brief. I think the Balintang Channel (where the Philippine Coast Guard shot at a Taiwanese fishing vessel) report was 74 pages long. She walked me through all the considerations. What are the precedents here? What were the facts here? What are the pertinent national and international laws?  It’s very thorough. You have to find time – first, to understand – then to absorb all of this,” President Aquino told Esquire in that feature story.

As I gathered, the exclusive interview by Esquire Magazine on President Aquino was done in late June. It goes without saying Malacañang early on already had the NBI final report. They withheld its release to the public – for reasons known only to them--until last Wednesday (August 7).

 From that time of the presidential interview by Esquire until it was made public, the number of pages of the NBI final report on the Balintang Channel incident increased from “74” pages that President Aquino mentioned to 85 pages as released to the media. We could only speculate on the difference of eleven more pages as it came out to media.  

Incidentally, the NBI final report was released while a series of deadly bombing incidents rocked Mindanao one after the other. The timing was most opportune to divert national attention away from possible panic that these renewed terrorist bomb attacks may trigger.

At any rate, the NBI release of its final report on the incident immediately prompted the government of Taiwan of President Ma Ying-jeou to lift sanctions against the Philippines. These retaliatory moves included ban on the hiring of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), travel restrictions, and even a show of force by Taiwan navy drills along the disputed territorial waters that separate Taiwan from our Batanes islands.

At one point, even our own basketball team was practically a victim of the strained relations with Taiwan. Citing they could not guarantee the safety at the 2013 Jones Cup held last month in Taipei, Gilas Pilipinas team was practically prevented from participation. This would have been a tune-up competition for our Gilas team before the scheduled 27th FIBA Asia Championship games in Manila.

The Gilas missed a chance to get back at this comeuppance. Before a home court crowd at the Mall of Asia Arena last August 3, the Chinese-Taipei team charged back from a 13-point deficit at the start of the final quarter and defeated Gilas at the end of the game with final score 84-79.

Thinking aloud: Gilas might have intentionally lost to Chinese-Taipei to appease them on the Balintang Channel incident. My suspicions were proven wrong a few days later. Chinese-Taipei team convincingly eliminated China – the defending champion – with a final score of 96-78.

As of this writing, Taipei lost to Korea in the fight for the last of the top three slots up for grabs in the FIBA Asia championship to move on to the world basketball games set in Spain in 2014. Gilas and Iran earned the first two slots.

But for now, both the Philippines and Taipei have mutually agreed to move on from the Balintang Channel incident that almost cut the strong ties we have with each other.