Understanding the South China Sea standoff through the Filipino Media

The following are what the Filipinos and their media say about the standoff

Unlike the selective nature of the mainstream media in the West, there are diverse views on the issue amongst the Filipinos within and outside the Philippines. There were strong calls for all Filipinos to protest against China across the world on 11 May 2012. However, the overall responses were miserable with only 200 protestors in Manila, 150 in San Francisco and 100 in New York.

The reason is, many Filipinos are in opposition of their President's behaviour in the standoff saga and worried about the possible return of the American military. Their voices are so powerful that, the Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario had to publicly call for patriotism. Some Philippines writers went to the extent to describe their mainstream and social media as "Quislings" (meaning traitors).

There are also radical and unfound allegations against China in the Philippines media. However, the misinformation has been effectively neutralised by alternative voices such as a call for information clearing house to promote accurate information.

The Filipinos' resentment against the Americans (their former colonial master) is overwhelming. When Hillary Clinton visited the Philippines in November 2011, she was greeted with protests; when the Americans involved themselves in the standoff with a joint military exercise with Philippines under the code name 'Balikatan', a group of Filipinos Americans and other Americans staged a surprise "anti-Balikatan protest" inside the Philippines consulate in New York.

There are also calls by the Filipinos to "push away the US interventionist", and alleged that the Americans are "exploiting" the situation. Some claim that, there will be "no peaceful settlement" with the American involvement. In short, there is a rising anti-Americanism in the Philippines. Unfortunately, like the Chinese, these Filipinos have no voice in the mainstream western media as well.

While the western media habitually portrays China as a bully and aggressor in any international dispute, the Filipinos have objectively pointed out that by "deploying a warship to confront the Chinese fishermen," their president, Mr. Aquino, "made the Philippines the party militarizing the dispute." Some Philippines lawmakers also added their voices calling for diplomacy. According to one of the lawmakers, Walden Bello: "China is very sensitive to territorial boundaries though it is not expansionist. Firm assertion of our rights along with flexible diplomacy is the best way to deal with her." The Moro Islamic Liberation Front while appealed to China to exercise restraint, also called upon the "Aquino administration to restrain the radical elements in his government from making provocative statements against Beijing."

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago while preparing to "file a resolution before the Senate that will assert the territorial claim of the Philippines," is worried that putting the case to an International tribunal "would take a toll on the Philippines claim." Santiago said that "bringing the maritime dispute before an arbitrary or even special arbitrary tribunal would also mean that a party will have to accept the decision without any appeal." While contemplating the idea of a joint exploration with China, Senator Santiago worries that the Philippines is "lagging in sea technology". The Senator doesn't believe that China is bullying the Philippines.

Mr. Victor N Arches II, a retired Filipino banker and economist, who loves to dabble in history and political science, wrote an article to acknowledge that: "The Scarborough Shoal does belong to China which discovered it and drew it in a map as early as 1279 during the Yuan Dynasty … In the late 1970s, China organized many scientific expeditions in the Shoal and around that area. In fact, in 1980, a stone marker reading "South China Sea Scientific Expedition" was installed by China on the South Rock. This Chinese marker was removed, without authority, by the Philippines in 1997."

Associate Professor Shankari Sundararaman, at the School of International Studies, JNU also presented his view with an article and acknowledges that: "China has a 1,000-year-old history of domination over Southeast Asia. Their assertion is also based on the fact that the region was discovered when Chinese power was at its height. In fact, Premier Zhou Enlai said that the South China Sea was a "core interest"."

The truth is, the Philippines has never made any claim over those disputed islands until the 1990s (Book: 'World Conflicts' 1998 by Patrick Brogan, pg. 265).

Despite the Philippines government making threat to file a unilateral complaint to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), the threat was dismissed by the Fishers Alliance as: "just one of those run-of-the-mill press releases issued by the President's propaganda and media team," and slammed the U.S. as the "no.1 terrorist nation … the biggest violator of Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity."