Acid Test for Aquino: Chinese Starve PH Marines at Disputed Shoal

China's latest purchase of 24 Su-35 multi role jet fighters and submarines
 from Russia may not only weaken Taiwan  air superiority
but further dwarf the militarily inferior Philippines.

BY MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

  Contingent of Philippine Marines

The public pronouncement of Chinese Major General Zhang Zhaozhong of the People’s Liberation Army on Chinese TV  to starve the Philippine Marines contingent in Ayungin Shoal did not only spawn a grave concern for countries who have stake at the West Philippine Sea or South China Sea but gave a reverberating chilling effect to the militarily weak Aquino Government of the Philippines.
           

Zhang said that his country’s naval strategy was to get rid of his country already occupied islands and shoals (One is Panatag or Scarborough Shoal, is 120 miles off of Zambales but 550 miles to the nearest Chinese port in China) from the Philippine military and fishermen through a Cabbage Strategy.
 Here’s an excerpt of what he said in the May 28, 2013 TV interview which was published too at the China Daily Mail:
"The fishermen conduct normal production there. In the area around the island, fishing administration ships and marine surveillance ships are conducting normal patrols while in the outer ring there are navy warships. The island is thus wrapped layer by layer like a cabbage. As a result, a cabbage strategy has taken shape. If the Philippines wants to go in, in the outermost area, it has first to ask whether our navy will allow it. Then it has to ask whether our fishery administration ships and marine surveillance ships will allow it. Therefore, our fishermen can carry out their production safely while our country’s marine rights and interests as well as sovereignty are safeguarded. Is that not satisfactory?"

On Ayungin Shoal, 105 nautical miles off of Palawan, General Zhang said:
 “We should do more such things in the future. For those small islands, only a few troopers are able to station on each of them, but there is no food or even drinking water there. If we carry out the “cabbage” strategy, you will not be able to send food and drinking water onto the islands. Without the supply for one or two weeks, the troopers stationed there will leave the islands on their own. Once they have left, they will never be able to come back. For many things, we have to grab the right timing to do them. Over the past few years, we have made a series of achievements at the Nansha Islands (the Spratly Islands), the greatest of which I think have been on the Huangyan Island, Meiji Reef (Mischief Reef) and Ren’ai Shoal (Ayungin Shoal)” 
On Ayungin Shoal, 105 nautical miles off of Palawan, General Zhang said:
 “We should do more such things in the future. For those small islands, only a few troopers are able to station on each of them, but there is no food or even drinking water there. If we carry out the “cabbage” strategy, you will not be able to send food and drinking water onto the islands. Without the supply for one or two weeks, the troopers stationed there will leave the islands on their own. Once they have left, they will never be able to come back. For many things, we have to grab the right timing to do them. Over the past few years, we have made a series of achievements at the Nansha Islands (the Spratly Islands), the greatest of which I think have been on the Huangyan Island, Meiji Reef (Mischief Reef) and Ren’ai Shoal (Ayungin Shoal)” 

Chinese Naval Special Forces

 ***

 I could see two scenarios incase Zhang’s unveiled threat become a reality:

1) Our poorly equipped Marines at Ayungin, whose provision from Navy ships has been blocked by the Chinese Navy, disgracefully capitulate and pack- up for home.

 2) the Aquino government, resolves to save face among the scandalized Filipino nation, ordered them to fight to death against the Chinese intrusion while our more than four decade old BRP Gregorio del Pilar(that I recently toured and wrote where you can accessed it at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-tour-php-biggest-and-fastest-warship.html) and the BRP Ramon Alcaraz blasted the modern Chinese Navy’s frigates with their 76 mm Italian made Oto Melara gun that fired 80 bullets, na singlaki ng batuta ni Dracula, per minute.

 The overpriced widow maker SIAI-Marchetti S-211
 is a turbofan-powered military trainer aircraft 
designed and originally marketed by SIAI-Marchetti for the 
poorly equipped Philippine Airforce. 

Does Aquino have the balls to go for broke for the second option?

 The Sinos would surely retaliate by sending more ships and troops, not to mention any of the 200 Chinese made Chengdu J-10, 76 Russian made Sukhoi Su-30MKK ,76 Russian made Sukhoi Su-27 Air Superiority Fighter, 180 China made Shenyang J-8 Interceptor Fighter, 350 China made, Chengdu J-7 Fighter/Interceptor,70 China made Xian JH-7 Fighter bomber to annihilate to smithereens not only our Marines at Ayungin but our BRPs Gregorio del Pilar, Ramon Alcaraz, and our 13 ground support and jet training Italian made Aermacchi A-211 Jets (where one of them is being displayed now by our low moral air force pilots - who ponder how to land a pilot job at PAL or Cebu Pacific - at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay) just like what they did to the Vietnamese soldiers in the Battle of the Paracel Islands in January 19, 1974.

With Mischief Reef, Scarborough Shoal, and parts of Ayungin Reef occupied by the Chinese already by building concrete structures at the first two, it’s high time for the 16th Congress to amend some provisions in the Constitution for the return of the U.S bases.

 With the hands-me -down battle ships given by Uncle Sam to us sailing side by side with modern U.S navy warships and submarines (armed with Tomahawk missiles, harpoons, and MK 38 Model 2 Close-In Weapon System (CIWS), the last one  is completely remote-controlled using an electro-optitical/infrared sensor ball and laser range finder to find and track targets just like at the movie entitled “Battleship” at HBO) escorting the beleaguered Filipino fishermen in our islets and shoals there. 

With the incessant intrusion of the Sinos in our 200 miles Economic Exclusive Zone (where China was also a signatory in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Filipinos who watch these blatant and patent trespasses would surely be scandalized.

 These could be their rallying point for the amendment of the Constitution for the return of the Yanks (who were booted out in 1991 by those former and hypocrite Senators who thought they have the God given monopoly to the closure of the bases despite majority of the Filipinos opposed them) and not the xenophobic 60-40 percent economic provision that is biased for limited capital Filipino oligarchs responsible for the Diaspora of the Filipinos abroad and the debilitating more than 3 million unemployed presently and the crushing poverty rate among the 27 percent of the population of 95 million Flips.

U.S aircraft carrier moored at Subic Bay in Zambales, Philippines

 Ordinary Filipinos do not understand the political or economic wisdom of the 60-40, but surely they understand the shameless affront to the national pride by the wanton Chinese incursions and occupations of our islets as being shown at the nighttime prime time TV news programs of ABS-CBN and GMA-7 at their living rooms.

 (You can send comments at totomortz@yahoo.com).