The Department of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines lodged recently a diplomatic protest seeking an explanation on why Chinese Navy patrol boats harassed a Philippine-sanctioned oil exploration vessel at the Reed Bank, a disputed area west of Palawan province.



The Chinese Embassy in Manila, however, ignored the protest and reaffirmed China’s sovereignty over the Spratly Islands.

The ownership of the Spratlys, a reputedly oil-rich chain of islands in the South china Sea,, is being disputed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

In relation to this protest, the  Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) dispatched two search-and-rescue vessels with Special Operations Group divers and a medical team, with a monitoring-control-surveillance vessel patrol unit to support the government energy exploration project which also include marine seismic survey in the area of Reed Bank, west of Palawan.

The Reed Bank is believed to be only some 80 nautical miles west of mainland Palawan. DFA Acting Secretary Albert del Rosario confirmed that the Department of Energy research vessel remains within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Why is the Spratlys important to the Philippines?

In 1995, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the group of islets and reefs, commonly known as Spratlys, believed ‘to be rich in oil and natural gas deposits and bruited about as the next Middle East, could be the next point of conflict in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly so that China is adamant in its claim of territorial jurisdiction over 80% of the South China Sea.  According to the  Chinese the Nash islands, as they called the Spratlys, have been inhabited by them since time immemorial.

Australia, like any country in the region, was alarmed at China’s position on the controversy, which is a total claim to almost the entire South China Sea and an accompanying military build-up in the islands would allow China to dominate the area. It added that any action in the South China Sea could result in increased tension in the whole Asia-Pacific region. The South China Sea is one of the busiest sea routes in the region.

The Spratlys issue has already brought tension among the members of ASEAN, particularly among Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, all claiming territorial jurisdiction in whole or part over the islands, not to mention Taiwan’s claim over the area too. China’s claim of 5.1 million square kilometres of sea cut across Malaysia’s gas fields off Sarawak, some Vietnamese oil discoveries, part of the 200km of territorial sea of the Philippines, and part of the Natuna gas field of Indonesia.

A couple of years ago, the Australian press reported that China’s determination to eventually gobble up the entire disputed area is evident in the construction of 8 Chinese military structures on Mischief Reef, part of the Spratlys which the Philippines claimed in 1978 and called the Kalayaan (Freedom) Islands Group. Mishief Reef is east of the Philippines’ Palawan Island and 650 nautical miles from China’s southern island of Hainan. There have been no less than 30 outposts constructed on these South China Sea islands over the past few years by five of the claimant countries.

In the Philippines, the Spratly Islands came to prominence when, in 1956, a successful lawyer-businessman, known to many as ‘Vice-Admiral’ Tomas Cloma, Sr., issued an open notice to the world about his claim to the group of islands, islets, coral reefs, shoals, and sand cays comprised within what he called Freedomland and the nearby seven-island group, the Spratly islands. He said he discovered the islands during many fishing expeditions to the South China Sea between 1947 and 1956.

Tomas Cloma, Sr., was born in Panglao, Bohol in the Visayas, on 18 September 1904 to Spanish settler Ciriaco Cloma and a Bohol-born maiden, Irena Arbolente. An adventurer by nature, he went to Manila at the age of 15 years and worked his way to complete his high school education at the Arellano High School in Tondo, Manila.

Subsequently, he worked for the Manila Railroad Company, now the Philippine National Railways, at its main Tutuban station. It was at the railway company that he became a licensed telegraph operator. This new qualification brought him to San Fernando, La Union, north of Manila, where he was assigned. It was there that he met lovely Victoria Luz  Borromeo Galves, who later became his wife.

Cloma worked as assistant editor of the shipping section of the Bulletin and was also assigned to cover the Senate and labour beats where he made friends with influential people who helped him achieve his life ambition–to go back to his roots in Bohol as an accomplished man. He established the Commercial Information Service which published a shipping manifesto for all incoming and outgoing cargoes in the Philippines. Later, he formed the Dagohoy Trading Shipping Company, consisting of passenger sailboats ferrying people on oversized outriggers from Lucena in Quezon province, and the Visayas. The Visayas Fish Corporation came later.

Another interest during this period was a successful lighterage business with three tugboats plying the Pasig River. The increase in the number of tugboats he operated resulted in the idea of a private nautical school, based in Manila. The Philippine Maritime Institute, popularly known today as  PMI College, was established by Cloma in 1948, with 25 students on a lonely barge docked along the Pasig River behind the old PLDT building, Magallanes Drive, Intramuros, Manila. From a small group of students in 1948, the PMI College was granted recognition by the Department of Education in 1950. It expanded and became the biggest nautical school in the Philippines.

Fondly called by friends and admirers as ‘Admiral’, Tomas Cloma’s important role in contemporary history, came when in one of his fishing expeditions in the later 1940s, he ‘discovered’ a batch of uninhabited islands and newly emerged reefs just off Palawan in the South China Sea. The location was a rich fishing ground. The idea of claiming the islands was discussed with his friends, such as the late Philippine President and Foreign Affairs Secretary Carlos P. Garcia, a fellow Boholano, and Senator Lorenzo Tańada. He called the islands The Free Territory of Freedomland.

In 1956, he filed an open notice to the world at the United Nations to signify his intentions and stated that Filipino settlers occupied some of the islands and governed themselves according to Filipino customs and traditions under Philippine laws. A few problems with other foreign troops were, however, experienced by the settlers, mainly Vietnamese and Taiwanese forces.

In 1972, when Martial Law was declared in the Philippines, ‘Admiral’ Tomas Cloma was imprisoned for four months for ‘impersonating a military officer by being called an ‘admiral’.

Tomas Cloma’s contributions to Philippine contemporary history was finally recognised by the government in December 1995, while tension was already escalating in the area, when then Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos presented the ailing Cloma with the Legion of Honour, the highest military award given to a civilian for outstanding services to the Philippines. Cloma died in 1996 at the age of 92.

Former President Carlos P. Garcia, then the secretary of DFA confirmed the importance of the Spratly islands and said, in 1950s:  ‘In view of the geographical location of these group of islands and islets embraced within Freedomland, their proximity to the western territorial boundaries of the Philippines, their historical and geological relations to the Philippine archipelago, their immense strategic value to our national defence and security, aside from their economic potential which is admittedly considerable in fishing, coral and sea products, and in rock phosphate, assuredly the Philippine Government does not regard with indifference the economic exploitation and settlement of these uninhabited and unoccupied groups of islands and islets by Philippine nationals so long as they are engaged in furtherance of their legitimate pursuits.’

Philippine policy on the Spratlys islands was clearly manifested when the Philippine government sent notes to Manila’s Embassies in the Republic of China and Republic of Vietnam in 1972 stating that the Kalayaan group, sometimes referred to as the  Spratlys, ‘had been acquired by right of occupation [by the Philippines]…’

For further reading on the Spratly island controversy, see Footnotes to Philippines History by Renato Perdon, through www.universal-publishers.com or amazon.com.

 

 

 

Munting Nayon News Magazine