The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) will summon Cambodia’s top diplomat in the Philippines and ask him to explain his accusation that “dirty politics” was behind the “inflexible and non-negotiable” position of the Philippines and Vietnam on the inclusion of the West Philippine Sea dispute with China in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agenda in its 45th ministerial meeting recently.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said yesterday DFA Undersecretary for Policy Erlinda Basilio is set to hand a note verbale today to Ambassador Hos Sereythonh to protest the allegations he made in his letter-to-the-editor published in The STAR. The Philippines and Vietnam had vigorously pushed for a common ASEAN stand on China’s incursions in the West Philippine Sea.
“He is being summoned this afternoon and be presented a note verbale,” Del Rosario said.
Basilio said the ambassador was originally summoned to appear yesterday but begged off for health reasons.
The DFA defended Basilio from Hos’ accusation that she had tried to manipulate, distort and exaggerate developments in the West Philippine Sea involving China in order to make her case.
Hos had also claimed that Basilio’s article “What happened in Phnom Penh?” represented the country’s official position.
DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said Basilio is “a professional diplomat with an unblemished record of nearly 50 years of service to the country.”
“Her statements were objective, factual and true. More importantly, Undersecretary Basilio was present in all the meetings in Phnom Penh. The Cambodian ambassador was not,” Hernandez told The STAR.
Cambodia, which hosted the recent ASEAN meeting, opposed the discussion of the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal issue and its inclusion in the grouping’s joint communiqué.
The Philippines and other ASEAN members deplored the non-issuance of a joint communiqué, which was unprecedented in the regional bloc’s 45-year existence.
“We will be giving a note verbale which includes our protest. We are going to summon the Cambodian ambassador to ask him to explain what he meant when he stated that the ‘inflexible and non-negotiable position of two countries of ASEAN is dirty politics’,” Hernandez added.
Hernandez said that strangely, Cambodia appointed a committee, which included Philippines and Vietnam, to form consensus on a final draft for an ASEAN stand.
“Upon a series of many negotiations, at least five final drafts achieved a consensus. Notwithstanding authority granted the committee, all final drafts were disapproved by the chair,” he said.
The DFA said the ambassador would be asked to reveal where he obtained information on the events he narrated in his letter since his accounts were not consistent with the records of the ASEAN meetings.
“We also intend to show the Cambodian ambassador why the ASEAN chair was being viewed as unduly advancing a non-ASEAN country’s interest, with a clear prejudice to positions of the Philippines and Vietnam, members of ASEAN,” Hernandez said.
In his letter to the editor, Hos claimed that both the Philippines and Vietnam continued to insist from July 9 until the last day of the meeting on July 13 to include their national bilateral disputes with China in the joint communiqué.
“By doing so, the two countries wanted to sabotage and hijack the joint communiqué as well as the AMM, and to make them fail before the eyes of the ASEAN Dialogue Partners and the International Community. It was truly an un-ASEAN spirit of unity and solidarity,” he said.
He also claimed that Del Rosario stated during the meeting that the bilateral dispute between the Philippines and China was non-negotiable and insisted that it be included in the joint statement.
“In other words, the two countries demanded that ASEAN collectively must yield to the national interests of the Philippines and Vietnam, even if it is at the expense of ASEAN,” he said.
He claimed that Cambodia had to bear pressures from ASEAN claimant states to issue a joint statement on the situation in the West Philippine Sea or South China Sea.
Hos said that to ensure an ASEAN consensus, Cambodia wrote to all ASEAN foreign ministers to ask for responses in writing on the issue. But, after waiting for several weeks, he said it was clear that ASEAN had no consensus on the Panatag Shoal issue.
“Finally, to try to blame Cambodia, as the ASEAN chair, for what essentially was the inflexible and non-negotiable positions of the two countries of ASEAN is a dirty politics and therefore it should have no place in ASEAN,” Hos wrote.
No time for silence
Basilio earlier said the Philippines cannot remain silent in the face of China’s brazen violation of Philippine sovereignty, the latest proof of which was its deployment of several vessels in the West Philippine Sea.
She belied allegation that the Philippines had unilaterally raised the rhetoric on the matter by even invoking the entire ASEAN community as a party to the dispute with China.
As early as 2010, Basilio said the Philippines has been conducting bilateral consultations with its ASEAN partners on the issue of competing claims in the West Philippine Sea contrary to allegations that Manila’s pronouncements were issued without careful, quiet consultations with its regional partners.
In 2011, the Philippines proposed a framework for resolving the dispute within the ASEAN forum. This process of consultation led to the ASEAN decision to refer the Philippine proposal to ASEAN’s maritime legal experts.
She clarified that ASEAN had already agreed on the key elements of the proposed Code of Conduct on the South China Sea for discussion with China.
“Never before has our regional association been as strained as it is today – and much of the blame might be put on the Philippine side,” Basilio said. “ASEAN had already agreed on the key elements of the proposed Code of Conduct on the South China Sea for discussion with China. The Philippines was successful in having its suggested main elements included to give the Code the substance it requires,” she said.
“The strain being felt by ASEAN is not attributable to the Philippines but it was reportedly due to the failure of the chair to gain a consensus. Within the ASEAN framework, the Philippines needed to be resolute in giving primacy to national interest,” Basilio said.
The “souring of the mood” during the ASEAN meeting was largely an offshoot of the grouping’s failure to issue a joint communiqué.
On China’s “duplicity and intimidation,” Basilio pointed out that the Philippines forged an agreement with China for a simultaneous pullout of all vessels in the shoal. Chinese vessels have remained in the areas despite the Philippines’ withdrawal of its vessels on June 4.
At the ASEAN meeting, Del Rosario discussed the situation in Panatag Shoal, which prompted the drafting of a joint communiqué.
“However, the Cambodian chair consistently rejected any proposed text that mentions Scarborough Shoal,” she said.
On Phnom Penh’s statement that its position was quietly shared by Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, Del Rosario said “the view of the Philippines was strongly supported by many countries, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and even the ASEAN secretary-general expressed support.”
Basilio also denied that the Philippines had accused Cambodia of pandering to Beijing’s wishes with the ministerial meeting’s failure to issue a communiqué.
“We did not accuse Cambodia of doing Beijing’s bidding, choosing to remain silent; other quarters preferred not to be silent,” she said.
China is generally believed to have pressured Cambodia into rejecting the issuance of a joint communiqué.
Chinese vessels have left
Meanwhile, two Chinese vessels spotted near Kalayaan town in Pag-asa island in the Spratlys have left, according to the Palawan-based Western Command.
“The latest (monitoring) is that, the two fishing boats that we have monitored near Pag-asa are no longer around,” Lt. Col. Niel Estrella, Western Command (Wescom) spokesman, said.
But he said he couldn’t tell if there were no more Chinese vessels in the area since the waters were rough.
“Our monitoring efforts are focused over our regime of islands within our own Kalayaan Island Group (KIG),” Estrella said.
The KIG is directly under the administrative control of Kalayaan, an island municipality of Palawan based in Pag-asa island, the second biggest island the Spratlys, occupied by civilian residents and troops.
China, on the other hand, has announced that its fishing flotilla dispatched from Hainan to the West Philippine Sea has returned to base after days of fishing in the Spratlys region.-The Philippine Star (July 31, 2012)
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