Marcos: Terribly uninformed… or unhinged?

IN an “ambush interview” by reporters last week, President Marcos Jr. demonstrated his gross ignorance of our disputes with China on the South China Sea and even on what US-made missiles are in Philippine territory.

Probably childishly thinking he could mimic US President Trump’s “deal-making” penchant, he said: “Let’s make a deal with China: stop claiming our territory… Stop your aggressive and coercive behavior.

And I’ll return the Typhon missiles. They stop what they’re doing, and I’ll return all of it.”

While a largely captive media didn’t make much of Marcos’ statements, the statements were so shocking they bordered on Marcos’ being unhinged.

In the first place, the Typhon “missile” — a single battery only actually — isn’t Marcos’ nor the Philippines’ to parlay in any deal. The US hasn’t donated to us the missile system. The Americans aren’t explaining why they haven’t pulled it out when it was deployed here during the last Balikatan exercises last year, not to train Filipinos on how to use it, a highly technology-based weapon. The US military said it is here only to test its mobility, i.e., its capacity to be transported from some US military bases elsewhere to their military facilities here in the sites under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).

US officials would be mad at Marcos for claiming he would parlay the “Typhon missiles” for China’s acquiescence to the Philippines’ claims in the South China Sea. This, in effect, is an announcement from the country’s highest official that the Typhon missile battery is here on a permanent basis — which the Americans had not declared.

Announcement

The Chinese will soon use Marcos’ announcement to the world that Typhon missiles are deployed in the country to justify a move to counter these weapons by developing Scarborough into a fortification similar to the seven artificial islands it has in the Spratlys, with anti-missile systems purportedly to intercept the US-made missiles which Marcos announced.

For the sake of our country — and the world — Marcos should avoid “ambush interviews,” especially in the morning, when his head might not be so clear.

Marcos demonstrated in the ambush interview that he has been so caught up in the narrative and fake news crafted by the US and repeated mindlessly by his military offices over our disputes with China in the South China Sea.

Marcos reveals his refusal to understand objectively our disputes. Rather than understanding that China has claimed the Spratlys and Scarborough Shoal aggressively even before World War 1, he portrays the Chinese simply as aggressors ramming our vessels.

This view is largely due to what is probably one of the biggest fake news spread by US propaganda operatives with their de facto assistant Philippine Coast Guard official Jay Tarriela and repeated in nearly all media reportage on incidents over our dispute with China, including this paper and including its columnists. This total lie is as follows:

“China ignores the 2016 arbitral ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration that declared illegal China’s claims in the South China Sea.”

Fake news

I cannot really understand why this fake news refuses to die when it is so crystal clear, in the very document of the ruling, that first, the Permanent Court of Arbitration had nothing to do with it except as registrar or keeper of the proceedings’ records. It was a mere five-person ad hoc panel of arbitrators that made the ruling, which was not a court of law. Second, as page 1 of the ruling emphasized:

“The Convention (UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, or Unclos), however, does not address the sovereignty of States over land territory. Accordingly, this tribunal has not been asked to, and does not purport to, make any ruling as to which State enjoys sovereignty over any land territory in the South China Sea, in particular with respect to the disputes concerning sovereignty over the Spratly Islands or Scarborough Shoal.”

What the tribunal declared illegal was China’s “nine-dash line” drawn in a way encompassing most of the South China Sea” even before the People’s Republic of China was established. Whatever it is, China has never claimed that his line is the justification for its claims over the Spratlys and Scarborough Shoal. The line has nothing to do with China’s claims of sovereignty there. It claims these as part of its sovereignty as it had declared it so — formally even before World War I, which, however, France annexed in 1933.

It was former president Aquino III’s administration that was the aggressor when it attempted to regain complete control of Scarborough Shoal in 2012 by sending its biggest warship BRP Gregorio del Pilar there. The Chinese retaliated, of course, and eventually took over the shoal, ironically aided by the US, which tricked Aquino administration officials into giving it up in order to avoid armed conflict with China during a presidential election season. Aquino III’s officials said they had been tricked by the US by telling them that the Chinese had agreed to a simultaneous withdrawal of the ships, which they had not.

This is a matter of facts, not opinion.* Marcos Jr. has been foolishly trying to recover Scarborough, prodded by the US in order to create a propaganda narrative that China is a bullying superpower. What Marcos calls aggressive actions are China’s actions to defend Scarborough Shoal, short of a shooting war, which has been under its control since 2012.

This paper’s headline Sunday was “Marcos sees 12-0 sweep in Senate.” I rest my case.

*(The facts — totally unchallenged so far — are all laid down in my 2022 book, “Debacle: The Aquino regime’s Scarborough fiasco and the South China Sea arbitration deception.” Available at Fully Booked, Amazon, and Lazada.ph)

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Marcos: Terribly uninformed… or unhinged?
Source: Breaking News PH