Aquino making Philippines a pawn, leftist leader says

Manila: Philippine President Benigno Aquino has made the Philippines a pawn between the US, an old Philippine ally and former colonial ruler, and China which is showing imperialistic tendencies by claiming all the reefs and shoals in the South China Sea, a local newspaper has reported.

"The Filipino people and [all] progressive forces must consciously differentiate their position from that of the Aquino regime, its military subalterns and its Akbayan [another leftist group] special agents who pretend to be super patriots against China, but are in fact servile to the interests of US imperialism," Jose Maria Sison, founder of the 45-year old Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

"The Filipino people and progressive forces must oppose what may be deemed as incursions and what may appear as aggressive behaviour of China with regard to the territories belonging to the Philippines," said Sison, who has been living in exile in Utrecht, the Netherlands since he was released from prison by former president Corazon Aquino in 1986.

Explaining the young Aquino's stance, Sison said the Philippine president wanted "to justify the escalation of US military intervention in the Philippines and US hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region".

Advising Aquino, Sison said, "There is unity and struggle between two capitalist powers in the relationship between the US and China."

US worried

Explaining that the US would not take up the cudgels for the Philippines, Sison said, "It [the US] is more worried about China's military strength being able to defend China, fend off US imperialist dictates and threats and combat separatist forces in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang." He was referring to separatist moves from places near China.

Noting the new geo-political persuasion of China, Sison said, "The apparently aggressive or assertive acts and words of China are in consonance with its own premise of national sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as with the bourgeois character of the Chinese state which may indicate an imperialist tendency or ambitions."

Strength of claim

The claims of the Philippines on parts of the South China Sea and other areas of the Spratly Archipelago are based on a very strong premise, said Sison.

"The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea [Unclos] is the strongest legal basis for the definition of the territorial sea and the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone of the Philippine archipelago," Sison said. It is also the official basis of the country's claims on the South China Sea.

Because of this, Sison said, "The Filipino people must assert their national sovereignty and Philippine territorial integrity over the issue of the Spratlys [Kalayaan] and other islands, reefs and shoals [which] are well within the 200-nautical mile [Exclusive Economic Zone] as defined by Unclos."

Like China's historical claims on the South China Sea, Sison said: "Archaeological evidence shows that the islands, reefs and shoals have been used by inhabitants of what is now the Philippines since prehistoric times."