Carpio: PH, other claimants should ward off China’s ‘creeping invasion’ in West PHL Sea

The Philippines should join forces with fellow claimant-states and other countries in warding off China’s “creeping invasion” in the West Philippine Sea, Supreme Court acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio said on Monday.

For the nth time, Carpio also called on the Duterte administration to bring a formal diplomatic protest opposing Beijing’s continued militarization in the disputed South China Sea, the latest of which was the deployment of nuclear strike-capable bomber planes in the Paracels.

International military analysts said the successful landing of H-6K military aircraft, which has a combat radius of 3,520 kilometers, on Woody Island put the entire Philippine archipelago within its combat range.

“Any self-respecting sovereign state will immediately formally protest such encroachment on its sovereignty and sovereign rights. The Philippines must do no less,” Carpio said in an email to the INQUIRER.

“Failure to formally protest means the Philippines is acquiescing or consenting to the militarization, and worse, to the claim of China that all the islands, waters and resources within the nine-dashed line form part of Chinese territory,” he stressed.

Carpio, a central figure in the country’s fight for control over the West Philippine Sea, played down President Duterte’s claim that standing up to China’s construction of military facilities in the contested sea region would only result in a war.

“A formal protest is recognized by the United Nations’ charter as a peaceful and legitimate response (to a territorial dispute),” the magistrate said, adding:

“The failure to formally protest China’s militarization and creeping invasion makes the Philippines a willing victim of China’s third warfare strategy– acquiescing to China’s claim without China filing a single shot.”

The justice warned that China may soon land similar long-range bomber planes on the three-kilometer military grade runways it built on three Philippine-claimed reefs- Panganiban(Mischief), Zamora (Subi) and Kagitingan (Fiery Cross)- in the Spratly archipelago.

The three reefs belong to the Kalayaan Island Group located within the 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone of the Philippines.

Last month, the Inquirer reported that two Chinese military cargo planes had landed on China’s artificial island in Panganiban Reef.

Carpio, who led the legal team that won for the Philippines the historic ruling of the UN-backed arbitral court in The Hague that invalidated China’s “nine-dashed line” claim, said the Philippines should solicit the help of its neighboring countries which were also claiming portions of the expansive South China Sea.

Aside from the Philippines and China, also insisting ownership over parts of the disputed sea region are Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.

“(The) Philippines must now coordinate with other claimant-states, as well as other states that see a threat to freedom of navigation and overflight, in resisting China’s militarization of the South China Sea,” Carpio said.

“Failure to coordinate, and to harness world opinion to support the arbitral ruling, will be handing over to China on a silver platter the West Philippine Sea,” he lamented.

Crisscrossed by various sea-lanes, the South China Sea hosts some $5 trillion in global trade every year. Its islands, reefs and atolls are believed to be sitting atop vast oil and gas deposits.

Carpio said Beijing’s efforts to put up military installations in the Spratlys and the Paracels was part of its “three-warfare strategy” to have full control of the South China Sea for its own economic and military gains.

He said China was building huge air and naval bases to “intimidate into submission” the Philippines and other countries to accept its encompassing ownership claim over the entire South China Sea.

“China’s third warfare strategy is to display its overwhelming military superiority to force other claimant states into submission without China firing a single shot,” he said. /vvp