Manchurian Candidates silent on China ‘grab’ of Sandy Cay

Rody Duterte’s senatorial candidates can have a show of hands. Who among them will jet ski to Sandy Cay, plant the Philippine flag, and declare “This is ours?”

Duterte won votes with that campaign promise in 2016. Five years later he sneered that he was only joking and those who believed him were fools.

In the interim he visited Xi Jinping five times, professed love for him and begged him to make the Philippines a province of China.

He belittled the near drowning of 22 Filipino fishermen whose anchored wooden boat was deliberately rammed by a China Maritime Militia steel trawler. He allowed Xi’s hundreds of other vessels to fish in Philippine exclusive economic zone, no limit on volume, area, season.

Bongbong Marcos’ senatorial candidates can have a separate show of hands. Who among them abet Duterte’s Manchurian Candidates in the hope of getting residual votes by fence-sitting? They must be told about Social Weather Stations latest survey: 75 percent of voters will junk China stooges.

So far only three of them – Ping Lacson, Francis Tolentino, Erwin Tulfo – have denounced China’s meddling in Election 2025. Not only is there peril of a China Communist Party-controlled Senate in the next three years, but also a CCP puppet-president in 2028.

The Chinese embassy has hired Manila communications firms to propagandize CCP’s claim of the entire South China Sea via a concocted nine- or ten- sometimes 11-dash line.

The firms in turn hired trolls to malign patriotic academics, lawyers and media men. Primarily targeted was Senator Tolentino for sponsoring the Philippine Maritime Zones Law. Also retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio for debunking each of Beijing’s bogus ownership claims over Bajo de Masinloc or Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, and now Sandy Cay in Kalayaan municipality, Palawan.

The mercenary firms orchestrate calls by online influencers and supposed experts to demand that Malacañang employ diplomacy instead of modernizing the AFP against China sea aggression. Also to blame unarmed Philippine Coast Guard and fisheries bureau craft for “ramming” China gunboats twice their size.

The lines are drawn. In this election campaign, it’s either pro- or anti-Communist China. Let Filipino voters choose between the two.

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CCP’s English language organ Global Times lied about their taking
“sovereign jurisdiction” over the Philippines’ Sandy Cay. State news agency Xinhua and state broadcaster CCTV echoed the falsehood.

In truth, five Chinese coastguards landed there early April for photo ops. They selfied themselves holding their flag, with a rubber boat as props.

CCP timed the photo release on April 24, three days after the three-week Phl-US Balikatan military exercise commenced in the West Philippine Sea. Contingents from Japan, Australia, Canada, Britain and France joined the 12,000 American and 6,000 Filipino Marines, sailors, airmen and artillerymen.

“China’s proclaiming and showcasing ‘seizure’ of Sandy Cay manifests aggressive and belligerent behavior towards the region,” said international maritime law expert Jay Batongbcal, PhD. “Taking place just weeks after the latest Code of Conduct talks, it also shows that ASEAN-CN negotiations are a useless exercise, and that China bears no good faith in coming to the table.”

CCP is twisting history, science and law to claim Sandy Cay.

Its name for it, Tiexian Jiao, makes it sound ancient. The name also connotes “island,” which Sandy Cay is not. An island like Pag-asa, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, must have its own natural fresh water source.

Sandy Cay is a sandbar that became four permanent protrusions at high tide starting 2017. That was because of pulverized corals from Zamora (Subi) Reef, 12 nautical miles southwest, which China began to concrete in 2013 into a 3,000-meter airstrip, deepwater naval port and fortress.

Being only 1.6 nautical miles (3 kilometers) away, it is within the 12-nm territorial waters of Pag-asa (Spratly) Island, Kalayaan’s main barangay.

Zamora is also part of Pag-asa’s territorial sea, The Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in 2016. China illegally occupied it and nearby Kagitingan (Fiery Cross) Reef in 1989, and destroyed corals with its reclamation.

That China has put Zamora and Kagitingan under the jurisdiction of Hainan Island-province does not make it legal. Zamora and Kagitingan are more than 200-nm distant from Hainan. Thus, beyond China’s own EEZ.

PCA further ruled that China devastated the ecosystem by reclaiming Zamora and Kagitingan. Another violation was China’s persistent constructions while arbitration was ongoing.

Although Sandy Cay’s 1, 2, 3 and 4 are within Pag-asa territory, the Philippines refrains from permanent occupation. This is in deference to the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct in the South China Sea. DOC restrains signatories from any further grab. China broke it in 2012 by blockading Bajo de Masinloc, 120 nm from Zambales.

The last time Chinese trespassed Sandy Cay, September 2023, was ruinous. UP biologists who came to survey the fish quality in surrounding waters discovered piles of dead corals six-feet high, obvious Chinese preparations for reclamation.

Sandy Cay is no longer a maritime dispute subject to PCA. It is now a territorial dispute, subject to the International Court of Justice.

“If China thinks its case is solid, then let’s bring it to the ICJ,” says Carpio. “If China refuses, then that means its claim is farcical.”

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