Fishermen in Zambales, Rizal, and Cavite, rose in the early morning of June 12 and voiced opposition to President Rodrigo Duterte’s anemic reaction to China’s creeping invasion of waters close to the coastal territories of the country.

On Independence Day, various groups protested the Philippines’ subservience to China and her continued presence in the West Philippine Sea. 

Fishermen in Zambales, Rizal, and Cavite, rose in the early morning of June 12 and voiced opposition to President Rodrigo Duterte’s anemic reaction to China’s creeping invasion of waters close to the coastal territories of the country.

In Davao City, the President’s homecourt, activists rode their bikes to China’s consulate demanding that Chinese forces abandon the West Philippine Sea. They could not reach their destination because the Davao police barricaded the road leading to the consulate.

Contrast Duterte’s jet-ski joke to the actions of Indonesian President Joko Widodo who himself flew to Natuna Besar island to defend his country’s maritime rights after repeated intrusions by Chinese vessels into the Indonesian exclusive economic zone.

The ongoing friction between China and Indonesia in the Natuna islands is the direct result of China’s great invention, the nine-dash line, which overlaps with Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in the area. This was the same nine-dash line, ostensibly based on China’s “historic rights” over the area, that was invalidated via the arbitration case that the Philippines won in July 2016.

Indonesia has since beefed up its maritime force. Early this year, Indonesian civilian patrol vessels were outfitted with stabilized naval gun systems to deter Chinese fishing vessels from entering the Natuna Seas. Indonesia also deployed warships and fighter jets to the region – all unmistakable acts of belligerence on the part of Indonesian leadership.

This was about the same time that Chinese vessels began swarming the Julian Felipe reef of the Kalayaan Island Group. The boomerang-shaped reef is just 175 nautical miles west of Batarza, Palawan and therefore very much within the Philippine 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

The reef has been claimed as within China’s nine-dash line, a U-shaped historical line that she had been using in gobbling up 90% of the area within the South China Sea. The Chinese Mission to the European Union has remarked that the reef “is part of China’s Nansha Islands. The reef and its adjacent waters have always been important operating areas and shelters for Chinese fishing boats.”

Take note of how China continues to avoid any reference to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that is the applicable law on the matter. The reason is simple – the nine-dash line is contrary to its provisions. Thus, according to the arbitral tribunal at the Hague, the line does not have “lawful effect to the extent that they exceed the geographic and substantive limits of China’s maritime entitlements under the Convention.”

It is quite ironic that while Indonesia continues to cite the arbitral ruling in support of its uncompromising position in the Natuna seas, the President of the country that was actually responsible for the release of that decision is now saying that it is nothing more than a useless scrap of paper.

Since the law is not on its side, China has reverted to an old paradox in international law – might makes right. The belief is that in international affairs power is the ultimate and only source of legitimacy. The strategy is that of a creeping aggression in Asia that aims to extend Chinese control of strategic areas like the South China Sea.

The Philippines’ tepid response to these swarming and island-building activities, e.g., the President’s usual refrain that the country cannot afford to go to war with China, or that the arbitral ruling may not be enforced anyway, is but an affirmation of “might is right,” an incantation that, absent the rule of law, is susceptible to abuse by the great powers of the world.

This country’s next head of State must be mindful that, au contraire, it is right that makes might. International law is the great balancer between big and small powers.

The Philippines must join Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei, in pushing for China’s acknowledgement of the arbitral ruling that shielded these countries’ EEZs from the undefinable breadth and dimensions of the nine-dash line./WDJ