PRESIDENT Joseph Estrada did promise in 1999 to remove the BRP Sierra Madre, which his Navy deliberately grounded on Ayungin (Second Thomas Shoal). In the instances when the governments of Estrada and later of President Benigno Aquino 3rd were reminded of that commitment by the Chinese, they claimed that technical difficulties prevented them from removing the landing ship, tank (LST) Sierra Madre.

This is an indisputable fact. The Foreign Affairs department is shamelessly irresponsible in its refusal to correct the claims of such ignorant jingoists as National Security Council spokesman Jonathan Malaya and Coast Guard official Jay Tarriela.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was more careful and instead said, “I am not aware of such agreement. If there was, I rescind it as of this moment.”

While the commitment was solely verbal, it was mentioned in several documents. The succeeding administrations after Estrada did not claim that there was no such promise. The denial of such a promise by Malaya, a former interior undersecretary, is the first to be made by a government official of the commitment. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has not officially denied that such a promise was made to the Chinese.

That there was such an agreement is reflected in confidential official memoranda by DFA officials.

MOST definitely, absolutely no. That won't happen. I hope I'm right. If I'm wrong, goodbye, world! It is the height of naivete over global geopolitics, and the depths of gullibility…

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(I posted this article half a year ago and am re-posting it, with only the last two paragraphs added, to prove that the August 5 water-cannoning incident should have been expected. A companion piece here is “The harsh reality: We have lost Ayungin Shoal,” which came out two years earlier on Nov. 24, 2021.)

I CERTAINLY hope it’s just coincidental, but the China Coast Guard’s recent blocking of a Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) ship delivering supplies to a platoon of Marines stationed at Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal) could be China’s first response to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s recent moves to place the country in alliance with the United States.

Marcos on February 2 agreed to allow the US to use as it pleases four more of our military camps (on top of the five that President Aquino 3rd gave them in 2014) under the 2014 Enhanced Cooperation Defense Agreement (EDCA). The Ayungin incident occurred on February 6.

The target: Daughter Sara

COLUMNIST Francisco Tatad the other day reported that the Supreme Court had ruled that the International Criminal Court (ICC) can investigate former president Rodrigo Duterte for alleged “crimes against humanity” in his anti-drug war.

The report is totally, scandalously and indubitably false. There is no such SC decision, obvious in that Tatad couldn’t even give his readers the number of the decision (called “General Resolution”) and the date when it was promulgated). Tatad based his entire column — to the point of shameless plagiarism — on a fake report written by one Marlon Ramos titled “Duterte can’t evade ICC, end treaty on his own.” It was published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer on July 22, 2021, which falsely reported on the decision of the SC four months after it was handed down.

That article maliciously selected several arguments in the decision in the course of its discussion, but which the SC eventually rejected.

That the PDI fake news appeared four months after the SC decision was made (and reported the same day by several international and local media), and knowing the dynamics of media corruption, I highly suspect the article was commissioned by the opposition.

Contrary to what Tatad and Ramos reported — that the SC ruled that the ICC may investigate Duterte — the high court upheld Duterte’s order for the government to withdraw from the ICC. This is contained in General Resolution 23887/General Resolution 240954 issued on March 16, 2021, which quite obviously Tatad didn’t bother, or was too lazy to read.

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VIETNAM could be the more serious threat to the Philippines’ Spratly (Kalayaan) territories and maritime areas because of geopolitical reasons.

Yet the late President Benigno Aquino 3rd, his foreign secretary Albert del Rosario — the two who pushed for the arbitration suit against China for allegedly intruding into our exclusive economic zone — Stratbase ADR the latter’s propaganda venue with its clueless head Dindo Manhit, the prolific China basher retired Justice Antonio Carpio and their like have never pointed out that Vietnam militantly claims what we, as well as China, claim.

Vietnam once succeeded in grabbing an island from us by tricking the Filipino troops guarding it.

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WHAT a country. Congress is spending P10 billion for its new building at the Bonifacio Global City — close of course to the swankiest restaurants and shops there. The Aquino 3rd government spent P1 billion for an “arbitration” suit against China that turned out to be useless except as a propaganda campaign tool.

We will allocate P125 billion for a Maharlika Investment Fund that most investment bankers who aren’t with the government are shaking their heads over.

Yet we spent and will spend almost very little in order to defend the islands we occupy in the Spratlys, by fortifying them. We just blah-blah about it, fooling ourselves that calling the sea there the West Philippine Sea establishes our ownership of everything there.

Vietnam, a nation ravaged by war for decades, shames us. Since 2016, it has spent considerable amounts — at least $200 million by one estimate — to turn the islands and reefs they occupy into formidable fortifications, to ensure their defense against an aggressor. Following close on China’s heels, it has reclaimed 300 hectares to enlarge the small islands they control. It plans to spend another $500 million for such purposes in the next few years, according to exclusive articles by this newspaper’s reporter. It certainly hasn’t been only China that has reclaimed land in the Spratlys to transform them into artificial islands complete with infrastructure.

IT seems like “sound” is President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s favorite description of the state of the nation. It is the second time he has used it to end his speech for that annual political ritual.

It’s unfortunate though that Marcos’ second SONA in this very sentence implied a big fallacy: “While the global prospects were bleak, our economy posted a 7.6 percent growth in 2022 — our highest growth rate in 46 years.” Marcos here is implying that we defied the global headwinds under his leadership enough to have a booming economy, the third highest in 49 years. It is beaten only by the 8.8 percent rates in 1973 and 1976, as the economy boomed during martial law’s first years, to a great extent since it suddenly imposed order on the nation, encouraging investments. Marcos’ father must have turned in his grave and said: “Nambobola pa ang anak ko a.”

The economy was not a booming one in 2022. The economy slowed down in 2020 so severely, at a rate of 9.5 percent, the worst such contraction in 50 years, because of the Covid-19 pandemic. How could the economy grow? The pandemic required a virtual stoppage of economic activity.