For some Filipinos, the

South China Sea dispute is

personal

MASINLOC, THE PHILIPPINES (May 16, 2015) -- The Marvin-1, a fishing boat, sits on the
shore, unused since the Chinese barred it from Scarborough Shoal in the South China
Sea. (Will Englund/The Washington Post)

By Will Englund-June 7

MASINLOC, Philippines When nations duel over reefs, rocks and islets, people are
going to get hurt, and in the South China Sea dispute that means the fishermen here
who once wrested a living from the contested waters.

Gunmen in a Chinese speedboat drove Macario Forones, for instance, away from a
favorite spot called Scarborough Shoal, and now his boat, the Marvin-1, sits useless in
the grass and weeds above the high-tide line, and he sells someone elses fish from a
stall in the local market. Efrim Forones now dives for clams in the bay, making about
one-tenth of what he did when he fished the sea. Viany Mula says he was set upon by
a Chinese water cannon when his boat ventured out to the shoal, and now he makes
deliveries around town on a motorbike, barely earning enough each day, as he puts it,
to buy the rice he needs.
I really want to fish the shoal, Mula said one recent day. Its a very rich fishing
ground. But thats not possible now.
For generations, the South China Sea was a regional commons. Fishing boats from all
of the surrounding countries would roam its waters, pausing now and then to trade
cigarettes or potatoes or gossip.
But then Vietnam, followed by the Philippines, began staking claims to some of the
islands, and now China is moving in, in a big way. Beijing is building upthe outposts it
has established, enlarging islands that it controls and claiming exclusive rights to
fishing grounds.
The smaller, poorer nations cant put up a real fight for the access to the sea that they
long enjoyed.
Thats not for us, Mula said. We have nothing.
But the Philippines does have the United States behind it, after a fashion. The
Americans are making more visits here, and stepping up naval patrols and overflights
and in the process, the South China Sea dispute becomes something bigger than a
contest for fish. It looks more and more like ageostrategic confrontation between the
two great powers, China and the United States; thats certainly how the Chinese
characterize it.
The U.S. military has long been a source of anguish, self-doubt and defiance for the
Philippines, a former U.S. colony. Many Filipinos are encouraged by recent U.S.
attention to the sea dispute, but they wonder whether the Americans give much
thought to the Philippines and the people who have paid the price as the dispute
deepens.
One in 3 residents of Masinloc have depended over the years on fishing for their
livelihoods, said Mayor Desiree Edora. Scarborough Shoal, a half-days sail from
shore, was a refuge from storms, a gathering place for fishermen from all over and a
home to abundant grouper and giant clams. Now, the Chinese have barred foreign
boats. It is like being thrown out of your own house, she said.
We cant replicate, she said, what Scarborough Shoal can provide.
The Philippines took China to court an international tribunal in The Hague two
years ago over competing claims in the sea. China refused to participate; a decision is

expected next year, but it probably will be unenforceable. The Philippine move may
have provoked the Chinese into trying to cement their claims by occupying and
building up as many spots in the sea as they could, but officials in the Philippines say
they had no choice after efforts to negotiate came to nothing.
The governor of Zambales province, Hermogenes E. Ebdane Jr., said he wonders
what Chinas ultimate goal is. No ones going to war over fish, he said. His
constituents, the fishermen, will have to find something else to do. But if this
confrontation is about something bigger, Ebdane said, its unclear what role the
Philippines might have. Theres a new defense agreement with the United States, but,
he said, neither side seems to have thought through the implications in the murky
weeks and months ahead.
A legacy of deep ambivalence
At the Defense College in Quezon City, on the outskirts of Manila, an entire wall in the
front lobby is given over to a painting that depicts the massacre of four dozen U.S.
soldiers by Filipino insurgents, at Balangiga in 1901. A diorama up a staircase shows
Filipinos battling Spanish conquistadors, and fighting against the Japanese in World
War II alongside Americans.
The United States seized the Philippines from Spain in 1898 and held it until 1946.
The U.S. military continued to keep permanent bases here until 1991.
The legacy is a deep ambivalence toward the United States. But the U.S. Navy is the
one force that is willing to challenge the Chinese and keep up regular patrols in the
region. An agreement signed last year would allow the U.S. military a standing
presencehere, rotating forces onto Philippine bases. It is held up by a lawsuit in the
Philippine Supreme Court.
Washington has stepped up visits and patrols, and it has made much of joint training
exercises and the donation of used military equipment.
That is not to protect the Philippines but to protect their own turf, said Roilo Golez, a
member of the countrys House of Representatives. U.S. military aid, worth about
$40 million a year, is nothing but a token, he said.
The Philippine armed forces, in this nation of 100 million, remain in woeful shape. Its
an article of faith that the government was caught napping when China began making
its moves in the South China Sea.
We remain quite dependent on allied help, and that is not good, said Rafael Alunan
III, former secretary of the interior. The focus of the Philippine government has been
on politics, politics, politics, at the expense of national security. China is taking
advantage of our inertia and lack of assertiveness. We are presenting ourselves as
unworthy before friend and foe.
Walden Bello, founding director of a group called Focus on the Global South, said his
country is right back to its role in the Cold War, when it played the part of handmaiden

to the United States.

But military officials here say they are unsure of the U.S. commitment if hostilities
should break out. The United States and the Philippines have a mutual defense treaty
pledging assistance if either is attacked, but Washington doesnt recognize any
nations territorial claims in the South China Sea, including Manilas. Naval analysts in
Washington say the U.S. response to conflict there would depend entirely on the
circumstances.
We may have overestimated how the United States will come to the rescue, said
Chito Santa Romana, an expert on China. We may have underestimated Chinese
resolve.
Water-borne civil disobedience
The two biggest vessels in the Philippine navy are former U.S. Coast Guard cutters,
retrofitted with deck guns, and of little use in standing up to the Chinese. The
government, in any case, has no desire to provoke China into a military confrontation.
That leaves the fishing fleet as the countrys best means for maintaining a presence in
the parts of the South China Sea that Beijing claims. Philippine boats and
Vietnamese boats challenge the Chinese when and where they can, until the
Chinese coast guard can drive them off. Its water-borne civil disobedience.
These are small, subsistence fishermen, said Evan P. Garcia, undersecretary for
policy in the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs. Theyre not a threat to
anybody. And its not as if they just went there yesterday.
The fish theyre after may be the other big casualty of the dispute. The tensions over
the years have kept anyone from getting good data on fish stocks, or devising a
conservation plan. Hundreds of millions of people live around the sea and eat its fish.
The Marine Stewardship Council, with an office in Singapore, says that the humpback
wrasse and bluefin tuna populations are close to collapse. Edgardo Gomez, a marine
biologist in Manila, said the Chinese have wiped out the giant clams on Scarborough,
and their construction work is destroying reefs that support the bottom rungs of the
seas food chain.
You have tons and tons of marine life in and around those reefs that are now gone,
he said.
The hatch is being shut on a way of life. The United States and China are either
pursuing strategic advantage or practicing destructive gamesmanship, depending on
the perspective. Filipinos have to live with that with the odd detour, as Garcia put
it, that brought them here.
Viany Mula would trade his motorbike for a chance to go to sea again in the blink of an
eye. But thats not going to happen.
Englund visited the Philippines on a Jefferson Fellowship, supported by the East-West

Center.
Posted by Thavam