Resolve Scarborough Shoal dispute before international tribunal, NDFP tells China, PH

By Gerry Albert Corpuz, Kalapinay Moreno and Himala dela Cuesta

MANILA, Philippines- (UPDATE) Mindanao-based revolutionary leader Jorge Madlos of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) advised the Chinese and the Filipino people to pressure the Beijing and Manila governments to settle the ongoing dispute in Scarborough Shoal through political diplomatic resolution before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and frustrate Washington D.C from exploiting the situation in the name of US economic, political and military interest in East Asia and the Pacific.

" Mindanao views theincursion of China in the West Philippine Sea, particularly in the Scarborough Shoal, as an infringement on the sovereign right and patrimony of the Filipino people. The Chinese government must immediately desist from taking injurious steps against the integrity of the Filipino people," said NDFP-Mindanao spokesperson in a statement emailed to all voices.

The NDFP leader said while the Filipino revolutionaries and the 101 million population of the Philippines recognized that the issue had been imbued upon the collective consciousness of the Chinese people that the West Philippine Sea is part of China, as much as Filipinos strongly believe that it is part of the Philippines, the stake here is the integrity of both peoples.

"The answer to this inter-territorial dispute, therefore, is not war, but rather a diplomatic political solution between two countries in a third-party international tribunal," said Madlos.

Military solution

The NDFP-Mindanao said the Filipino people should also assail and frustrate the military solution promoted by the Americna puppet government of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III and the pro-imperialist Akbayan special agents, and other rabid war mongers within the reactionary state.

The NDFP said the Aquino regime and its Akbayan party list war mongers shamelessly spread an anti-China hysteria that is engineered to drum up a military solution by upgrading the military capability of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and worse, insist on US military intervention.

"Undeniably, Imperialist US and the Chinese reactionary state have both oppressed and exploited both the Chinese and the Filipino peoples for over three decades. In the Philippines, Chinese big bourgeoisie like Henry Sy and Lucio Tan have connived with imperialist US to plunder our environment and exploit Filipino workers. The Scarborough Shoal standoff is but symptomatic of their corporate greed, just a scratch to their decades-long plunder and exploitation," the NDFP said.

Tension

The NDFP said the April 17-26 Balikatan exercises all over the country and in disputed areas and territories added to the tension in the standoff in Scarborough Shoal.

It said the recently concluded Balikatan exercises (US-RP joint military exercises), which was participated in by 4,500 US troops, and military contingents from seven other countries, sent a serious message to China that US imperialist power, in collusion with the Philippine reactionary government, is capable of engaging against those that threaten US hegemony in Southeast Asia.



The NDFP-Mindanao noted: "Despite the “hands-off” policy expressed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a recent meeting between the US and the reactionary Philippine governments, US imperialist power clearly continues with its strategy of “containment and engagement” to hinder China from aggressively expanding in Southeast Asian territories by maintaining the forward deployment of US military forces in the region and providing military aid to its Philippine client state."



Madlos of NDFP reminded President Aquino and Malacanang that historically, US military forces have never been known to defend the sovereign right of the Filipino people, but only to protect US imperialist interests in Asia and the Pacific.

"In fact, US imperialism owes the Filipino people blood debts for over a century of oppression and exploitation, and its continued intervention has dragged the country into bloody wars,, he said.

"Thus, while we denounce Chinese incursion into our territory, the Filipino people must equally if not more strongly condemn US imperialist intervention as shown in its direct troop presence in Mindanao and in other parts of our country, which imperils the Philippines by bringing it on the verge of a war against China.

Helpless war theater

The NDFP said the Filipino people must not be dragged into war on account of the West Philippine Sea dispute and become a helpless war theater for two of the biggest and most aggressive competing world powers, only to be used as a platform for their hegemonic conquest.

The NDFP recalled during World War II, the then emergent imperialist Japan attacked the Philippines because the US’s largest armament in Asia is stationed in the country, and, in turn, the Philippines also became a launch pad of Japan in occupying Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, and Thailand. We cannot allow the horrors of this history to repeat itself.



"We call on the Filipino people to collectively push for a diplomatic solution that will address the West Philippine Sea dispute in an international tribunal. Expose and oppose the war mongers in the US-Aquino regime who use the Scarborough Shoal dispute to serve the ulterior motive of its US imperialist master for the control and domination of Southeast Asia and the Pacific," it said.



Alongside our condemnation of China’s incursion into Scarborough Shoal, we must defy continued US troop presence and forward military deployment because these not only impinge on our sovereign right but, worse, drag the nation to the brink of an unjust war as well.