China’s attack on Teodoro is aimed at the Philippines

I spent a part of my Independence Day celebration trying to review some historical data of known Boholano leaders of the past. The names Tamblot and Dagohoy came out. They led two revolutions against Spanish rule. Tamblot, a babaylan (native priest) who led the 1621-1622 uprising against Spain, was a native of Barrio Tupas, Antequera town. Historical accounts showed that Dagohoy, (born Francisco Sendrijas) a native of Barangay Cambitoon, Inabanga town, was born in 1724. The Dagohoy revolt was sparked when a Spanish Jesuit priest refused to give his brother, Sagarino, a proper Christian burial. Dagohoy rallied the Boholano people and initiated the rebellion by killing the Italian Jesuit curate of Jagna, Giuseppe Lamberti, and later the Spanish parish priest Gaspar Morales.

Then came the names of Carlos P. Garcia and Tomas Cloma. Chronologically speaking, Garcia was our eighth president although reckoned from the grant of Philippine independence of July 4, 1946, by the U.S., he was the fourth president.

Boholano Tomas Cloma (born Tomas Cloma y Arbolente) in Panglao town, was an admiral, lawyer, poet, navigator and considered as father of Maritime Education. In 1947, he “discovered” a group of uninhabited and unoccupied islands/islets in the vastness of the western area of the Philippine Seas. He established a micronation called the "Free Territory of Freedomland" (or "Freedomland") in 1956. Cloma's claim of discovery was private. The Freedomland that he established, encompassed most of the Spratly Islands and the Philippine government formally absorbed the territory into the province of Palawan.

I had to mention this Cloma’s Freedomland and its adoption as part of Palawan province because on January 22, 2013, the Republic of the Philippines instituted arbitral proceedings against the People’s Republic of China under Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In 2016, the tribunal decisively invalidated China’s Nine-Dash Line claims as to be without legal basis and confirmed that specific maritime areas fall within the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

It must be made clear that the tribunal declared that the following features are located within the Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf of the Philippines: 1.) Mischief Reef (Panganiban Reef); 2.) Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal); and 3.) Reed Bank (Recto Bank).

Consequently, the tribunal found that China breached the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of the Philippines in these areas by interfering with Philippine petroleum exploration and fishing.

Recently, the Philippine authorities have monitored at least eight distinct, unauthorized objects placed by China inside the lagoon of Bajo de Masinloc. This is the breach committed by China of Philippine sovereign rights per the 2016 ruling of the arbitral tribunal. It is therefore perfectly legal for Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. to condemn such China’s deployment of a floating platform and antenna inside the lagoon of Bajo de Masinloc.

Yet, what did this modern communist super power called China do? Do you remember the story of William Tell’s putting two arrows on his bow? In pursuit of its arrogance and in demonstration of its contempt of our inferior military strength, it decided to prohibit Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and his spouse and child from entering the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao. That is the first arrow. To cover its violation of our sovereign rights, it justified its invasion of our territory by sideswiping at Teodoro. That is the second arrow. In reality, the international embarrassment of Teodoro is not China’s objective. It is its continued veil of threat upon us that China wants to achieve. It wants us to set aside the 2016 arbitral ruling and entirely abandon Tomas Cloma’s Freedomland.