By Brian Campued
The Philippine government pushed back against the claims made by Chinese scholars alleging that Batanes is part of China as Manila marks the 10th anniversary of the July 12, 2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the Philippines’ sovereignty over Batanes is “settled and not up for debate” after Chinese scholars remarked that Batanes belongs to China through Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province.
“Flights of fancy should not be dignified with a response. Nevertheless, the Philippines’ sovereignty over Batanes is settled and not up for debate,” DFA spokesperson Analyn Ratonel said in a statement Thursday.
“The Philippines will not entertain revisionist claims over its territory and calls on so-called scholars to focus their energies on genuine, good-faith studies of the region,” Ratonel added, noting that a Philippine-approved consular district of the Chinese Consulate General in Laoag includes Batanes.
Department of National Defense (DND) Sec. Gilberto Teodoro Jr. has likewise rejected the claims, saying that these are products of a society controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
“I view this as, once more, probably it’s a signaling of a pre-conceived intention already. Hindi rin malayo na nasa plano nila yan. And it also validates yung sinasabi natin na they have the plan to control the whole Pacific Ocean… We know walang basehan ito, kalokohan ito, and it’s ludicrous,” Teodoro said in an interview on the sidelines of the National West Philippine Sea Summit held in Pasay City on Thursday.
Debunking the claims
Based on news reports, the claims were made during a June 30 symposium in Jinan University, where scholars from Chinese universities and other research institutions “unanimously concluded” that the Batan Islands constitute a natural geographic extension of Taiwan, with sovereignty belonging to China.
The National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) debunked the claims, saying it lacks basis and “would never stand under scrutiny in academic discourse outside of the People’s Republic of China.”
“Current satellite and oceanographic data by the Philippines and other nations clearly show a continuous shelf extending from Northern Luzon through the Babuyan & Batanes Islands, and into parts of the Taiwan archipelago,” the NHCP said in a statement Friday.
“The Philippines claims a greater right over the subject territories from this perspective.”
On the claim made by the dean of Jinan University’s School for International Studies that Batanes Islands were “under the jurisdiction of Taiwan Prefecture during the Ming and Qing Dynasties” between the 1360s up to the 1900s, the NHCP noted that the “earliest known extensive documentation” of Batanes that was made by British explorer Willian Dampier in 1687 showed “no trace of Chinese governance” over the islands.
“The natives of Batanes, the Ivatan people, lived in protected communities and traded with other maritime trading nations. This is clear in the archeological and historical evidence produced by more than a hundred years of research,” the agency said.
It further emphasized that Batanes had been formally claimed as part of Cagayan province by the Spanish Empire in 1783, and was “already recognized as an integral part” of the country’s territory during the 1986 Philippine Revolution and the First Philippine Republic.
“They were represented in the Malolos Congress and every subsequent iterations of our national legislature. They have an elected government, one that is recognized by the whole world as Filipino,” the commission said.
The NHCP likewise disproved the claims that Batanes was among the territories that Japan should return to China as mandated by post-World War 2 international treaties.
“Japan cannot give to China what clearly belongs to the Philippines. Furthermore, the people of Batanes had already liberated themselves from Japanese rule by early 1945. This only proves beyond any doubt that Batanes has always been Filipino,” it stressed. (with reports from Gab Humilde Villegas and Patrick de Jesus / PTV News)
-jpv
