Tubbataha, Sabah and Billy

By DUCKY PAREDES
MALAYA

‘Billy was huge – a giant physically – and a moral giant, too!”

THE Tubbataha marine park must really have a lot of fish. It even catches boats. Just days after a US warship was removed, now it has caught the Chinese fishing vessel, Min Long Yu in another part of the reef, miles away from where the USS Guardian was stuck.

There are differences in the US and PROC situations. The USS Guardian was a military vessel that had the permission of our government to enter the Philippines. The Chinese boat (of still unknown registry) is a fish poacher which entered the country illegally and, thus, its 12-man crew has been arrested by our Coast Guard.

Min Long You is a 48-meter-long, steel-hulled fishing boat from Fujian, China. Thus, it is a much smaller vessel than a war ship and could most likely extricate itself from Tubbataha without having to be dismantled.

It is foolish to ask (as some have) why a Chinese fishing vessel was able to reach Tubbataha without being detected by the Coast Guard.

We really have no capability to stop Chinese or other foreign vessels from entering our Philippine Seas.

Rather than purchase enough vessels to patrol our vast Philippine Sea, we are spending our funds on PDAFs, which are given to our congressmen and senators, and are supposed to help develop our countryside. In the meantime, our backdoor remains wide open.

(There was a time when we had American bases in our country. Those made us safe from foreign ships scavenging in our seas and foreign jets entering our airspace. More often than not, stray planes and ships would be accosted by US military panes and vessels. Thus, rather than risk a run-in with superior forces, most foreign vessels in the air and sea would take a detour instead of entering Philippine territory. What happened? Our Senate kicked out the US bases without providing an alternative defense deterrent.)

If the boat can extricate itself from the reef on its own, it will be taken to Puerto Princesa in Palawan. As for the crew 12 from the Min Long You? They have been arrested for illegally entering the Philippines.

According to Tubbataha Management Office chief Angelique Songco, “We cannot speak to them because they only speak Chinese. So it was difficult for us to question them on where they came from and what they were doing here in Tubbataha.”

Why has Tubbataha turned out to something like a trap for passing vessels?

The presence of the Chinese fishing boat in Tubbataha, an area outside China’s so-called nine-dash territorial line and well within Philippine territory, is a clear indication that Chinese fishing boats have been going as they please in and out of Philippine territorial waters.

Could they be spying on what is going on with the Malampaya Gas Field off Palawan?

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I regard news about the Sultan of Suu’s claim to Sabah with a “ho-hum.” Now, we are told by Abraham Idjirani that more than 400 “volunteer fighters” of the Sultanate of Sulu have arrived in Lahad Datu, Sabah, to reinforce the sultanate’s beleaguered “Royal Security Forces. They went there because of the continued human rights violations of the Malaysian on the Filipinos there.”

Imagine that! The only reason they are in Sabah is to protect the human rights of the Pinoys who are being targeted by the Malaysian forces because of the Sultan’s “royal army” that landed in Sabah fully-armed “to take up residence” in the Sultan’s property!

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The Sultanate of Sulu had title to Sabah even when we were still under the Spanish. The Sultan ceded Sulu and Palawan to the Spaniards but kept Sabah from them. Apparently, the Americans knew about it since there were at least two letters from the United States reminding London that Sabah was owned by the Sultan, a gift from the Sultan of Brunei.

The Philippines became independent in 1946. Still, the Sultanate kept Sabah for itself.

In 1962, when the Federation of Malaysia was formed as an independent nation which included Sabah (North Borneo), the Sultanate of Sulu belatedly ceded the territory to the Philippines in order that the Sultan’s claim to the property could be pursued in international courts.

The Sultanate of Sulu claims that it had merely leased North Borneo in 1878 to the British North Borneo Company for an annual payment of 5,000 Malayan dollars then, which was increased to 5,300 Malayan dollars in 1903.

Since then, however, it has been considered internationally as part of Malaysia.

The Cobbold Commission’s 1962 referendum in Sabah and Sarawak, where about two-thirds of the people voted to be part of Malaysia was the basis for their inclusion in the Federation of Malaysia.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) also recognized Malaysia’s rights and sovereignty over Sabah and the islands surrounding it in 2002.

The ICJ recognized Malaysia’s claim in its decision on the dispute between Malaysia and Indonesia over the islands of Ligitan and Sipadan, off the coast of Sabah, in December 2002. The Philippines at the time applied to intervene in the case, but our application to intervene was rejected by the ICJ.

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STAR columnist (As I Wreck This Chair) and Philippine Legion of Honor awardee William “Billy” Esposo was someone I truly admired. He died at 12:08 a.m. on April 7 at the Makati Medical Center. He was only 64.

“My brother was a fighter till the end,” said his sister Carol Espiritu.

Billy’s health has been bad for some time and he wrote about this in his book “Kidney Diaries.”

In his last column, he wrote: “My problem with the enlargement of the heart, the ailment that claimed my younger brother Richard’s life in 2008, took a turn for the worse. I had a weak left side muscle. A weakened front heart muscle now worsens the weakened heart.

“This is on top of my kidney problem and constricting arteries that worsen heart and kidney functions. These are excellent reasons for going and we thought we saw that happening last March 15 – The Ides of March, no less – when I felt a massive exit of energy and stamina from my body.

“A week later, during a sumptuous lunch at the Sofitel last March 22, ES Jojo Ochoa and Cabsec Rene Almendras couldn’t believe their eyes when they witnessed my indifference to the duck foie gras. That’s how bad I felt.

“Last March 23, I checked in at Makati Medical Center for tests and emergency coping mechanisms to decongest the heart and lungs. From an average fluid output of 2,100 ml over a 24-hour cycle, my kidney production is down to 110 ml. That is what is causing the heart and lungs to congest.”

His remains were at the Santuario de San Antonio Capilla San Francisco, a place he personally chose for his wake. Burial is today at Manila Memorial in Dasmariñas, Cavite.

Billy was huge – a giant physically – and a moral giant, too!

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