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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-22/pbbm-du30.avif" alt="Marcos Jr. and Rodrigo Duterte" loading="lazy" />
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(Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Rodrigo Duterte)
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<p>
I am referring to the controversy over the agreement between the Philippines and China made in 1999 over the handling of the removal of the BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal. The landing ship was grounded there in May 1999 by the Philippine Navy, reportedly without President Estrada's approval, on the justification that the ship stranded there as listed Philippine assets "represented the Philippines" over a disputed territory.
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That was, of course, a birdbrained idea, as any international law expert will tell you, with the status of shipwrecks not even mentioned in the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Even the US State Department doesn't list Ayungin Shoal as having a Philippine outpost. The 2007 Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks even requires owners of shipwrecks to remove them as soon as possible.
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<p>
It was the brainchild of Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado and the Navy Flag Officer in Command Eduardo Santos, who took command courses at the US Naval War College. The BRP Sierra Madre was grounded at Ayungin and the BRP Benguet near Scarborough Shoal a month later, on the excuse that these accidentally ran aground, would serve to keep alive the Philippines' claim over these areas.
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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-22/official-memo.avif" alt="BRP Sierra Madre Offcial Memo" loading="lazy" />
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(Official memos indicating there was an agreement.)
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<p>
The Chinese, of course, wouldn't buy that and protested to Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon, informing him that because of this "aggression," the scheduled official visit in November of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji would be canceled. Zhu's official visit - also to attend an informal meeting of officials from Asean countries, Japan, Korea and China - was supposed to give a boost to Estrada's prestige in the region. Estrada and Siazon had wanted to draw the Philippines closer to China, reversing President Fidel Ramos' overly pro-American orientation.
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<h4>
Furious
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<p>
Informed about Mercado and Santos' deed, Estrada was furious and directly ordered Navy FOIC to immediately have the two vessels return to their bases. The BRP Benguet immediately sailed back to its base. The BRP Sierra Madre wouldn't budge, as it was grounded too deep on the shallow coral-filled bottom of Ayungin Shoal. The Chinese said it would send a People's Liberation Army Navy vessel to pull out the BRP Sierra Madre and tow it to wherever the Philippines wanted. That would have been embarrassing for the Philippines, which instead promised to tow away the vessel as soon it had enough resources to do so.
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The Estrada government's agreement with the Chinese was for the Navy not to send repair and construction materials to the wreck to assuage Chinese worries that the Philippine government planned to use the vessel as a platform for constructing an outpost there in the same manner that the Chinese had built a small facility on stilts in Mischief Reef four years ago. Estrada, however, convinced the Chinese to allow a squad of armed marines to be stationed in the marooned ship, to be rotated and provided the necessities of survival. This was intended to defend the vessel from being dismantled by scavengers.
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There were three other administrations - that of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Benigno Aquino III and Duterte - after Estrada's. Only if Duterte, who became president 17 years later, had been able to time travel backward and disguise himself as Estrada could he have been involved in the agreement with China made in 1999, which President Marcos the other day blamed on Duterte. The agreement with China was honored by all presidents after Estrada, even if only by looking away.
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President Marcos Jr., with his national security adviser Eduardo Año and his defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro, has been in deep denial that there was an agreement. Either there's something wrong with their heads, or they are following a US playbook to keep the tensions between the Philippines and China to continue and in the headlines of local and global media.
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<h4>
Proofs
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<p>
There are three sets of proofs that incontrovertibly prove that there was such an agreement between China and the Philippines over the handling of the BRP Sierra Madre for its eventual removal. One would have to be extremely stupid or exceedingly untruthful to deny this evidence.
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First, photographs of the BRP Sierra Madre at different times 25 years after it was grounded confirm there was such an agreement, which was complied with by both parties until Marcos became president. When it was grounded in May 1999, it was a "well-kept handsome ship, looking spiffy and shiny. From the high angle where the pictures were taken, the helipad was so enormous that it made the chopper look like a firefly," a book commissioned by Albert del Rosario as an anti-China propaganda operation pointed out.
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By 2014, however, it was already terribly rusted, and more recent photographs showed it is all but a skeleton of a ship. If the Navy had maintained the ship - which is its duty, neglect of which is a crime - it would look like its well-maintained sister ship, BRP Benguet. It deteriorated because of the agreement not to supply it with repair materials.
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Second, two DFA documents report the Chinese demand for the Philippines to comply with its promise. In his April 23, 2013 memorandum to President Aquino 3rd, marked "confidential," then Foreign Affairs Secretary del Rosario reported that three ranking Chinese officials met on different occasions from April 11 to April 17 with different DFA officials. He wrote:
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"On the three occasions, the Chinese side said that the Philippine Navy vessel BRP Sierra Madre, on the pretext of being stranded, was ‘illegally grounded' on Second Thomas Shoal. The Chinese side claimed that Philippine authorities promised China that they would immediately remove the stranded vessel, but they have not done so to this day.
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"The Chinese side highlighted that the Philippines had not honored this commitment. It has repeatedly made representations to the Philippines to honor its commitment. They said that fourteen years have passed and China 'has given enough time to the Philippines, and China has been very patient.'"
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Del Rosario totally did not respond to this Chinese claim in his memorandum and did not inform the president whether there was an agreement or not.
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Marcos Distorts Ayungin Pacts to Accuse Duterte of Betraying Country