Battle of narratives

Nine years after it was rendered, the Philippines still fights for its victory in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling that thrashed the nine-dash-line claim of Beijing over the South China Sea (SCS).

- MARICHU A. VILLANUEVA

After it refused to participate in the PCA proceedings, China maintains its sovereign claims over the SCS.

It will be the 9th anniversary tomorrow of the Arbitral Ruling, but Beijing still ignores it with impunity. And the rest is a history of Chinese intimidations inside and around the 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Philippines. We now have a collection of videos of China Coast Guard (CCG) ships "bullying" away Philippine ships and vessels with the use of water cannons and attacking the boats and seizing the catch of our Filipino fishermen. The CCG's "monster ship," surrounded by People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels regularly show off China's military might at the SCS.

Yet, China, along with the Philippines, is among the 168 other country-signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Maintaining its presence and control, CCG vessels and Chinese militia gunships patrol the entire stretch of the SCS.

A few years after the PCA ruling, all that we have to show for it is we officially designated our maritime territories as West Philippine Sea (WPS). From the Kalayaan Island Group in Palawan down to Bajo de Masinloc (a.k.a. Scarborough) in Zambales, it includes all the islands, reefs, atolls, shoals, sandbars, and rocks around and within our country's 200-mile EEZ.

There have been nonstop intrusions of CCG and PLAN ships and vessels into our maritime territories at the WPS.

In fact, the Philippine Navy reported this week having monitored a total of 49 Chinese ships spotted sailing around the WPS, including nine CCG and 14 PLAN vessels in Bajo de Masinloc; 12 CCG and 2 PLAN vessels in Ayungin Shoal; and, nine CCG and 3 PLAN vessels near Pag-asa Island.