Em Esber Blog 2: Rally Against Chinese Aggressions

Winnie Monsod arrive in the rally.

Solita Collas-Monsod, popularly known as Mareng Winnie, is a Filipino broadcaster,

host, economist, professor, and writer.

A pretty Chinese lady TV broadcaster from PRC.

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China's Aggression in Scarborough Shoal also called Panatag Shoal and Bajo de Masinloc

Scarborough Shoal or Scarborough Reef was called Bajo de Masinlóc during the Spanish era since it was a part of Masiloc Zambales. It is more correctly described as a group of rocks or very small islands plus reefs in an atoll shape, rather than as a shoal, is located between the Macclesfield Bank and Luzon Island of the Philippines in the South China Sea.

The shoal was named after a tea-trade ship Scarborough which was wrecked on the rock with everyone perishing on board in the late 18th century. The Chinese called it Huangyan Island.

Claim by the Philippines

The Philippines claims that as early as the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, Filipino fishermen were already using the area as a traditional fishing ground and shelter during bad weather. In 1957, The Philippine government conducted an oceanographic survey of the area and together with the US Navy force based in then U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay in Zambales, used the area as an impact range for defense purposes. An 8.3 meter high flag pole flying a Philippine flag was raised in 1965. A small lighthouse was also built and operated the same year. In 1992, the Philippine Navy rehabilitated the lighthouse and reported it to the International Maritime Organization for publication in the List of Lights.
Several official Philippine maps published by Spain and United States in 18th and 20th centuries show Scarborough Shoal as Philippine territory. The 18th-century map "Carta hydrographica y chorographica de las Islas Filipinas" (1734) shows the Scarborough Shoal then was named as Panacot Shoal. The map also shows the shape of the shoal as consistent with the current maps available as today.

During the 1900s Mapa General. Islas Filipinas, Observatorio de Manila and US Coast and Geodetic Survey Map includes the Scarborough Shoal named as "Baju De Masinloc".

In 1792, another map drawn by the Malaspina expedition and published in 1808 in Madrid, Spain also showed Bajo de Masinloc as part of Philippine territory. The map showed the route of the Malaspina expedition to and around the shoal. It was reproduced in the Atlas of the 1939 Philippine Census, which was published in Manila a year later and predates the controversial 1947 Chinese South China Sea Claim Map that shows no chinese name on it . Another topographic map drawn in 1820 shows the shoal, named there as "Bajo Scarburo", as a constituent part of Sambalez (Zambales province).

By virtue of the Presidential Decree No. 1599 issued by President Ferdinand Marcos on June 1978, the Philippines claims an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) up to 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the baselines from which their territorial sea is measured. In 2009, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo enacted the Philippine Baselines Law of 2009 (RA 9522). The new law classifies the Spratly Islands and the Scarborough Shoal as a regime of islands under the Republic of the Philippines.

The DFA further cites the Island of Palmas Case, where the sovereignty of the island was adjudged in favor of the Netherlands because of effective jurisdiction and control despite the historic claim of Spain. The Philippines has exercised effective jurisdiction and effective occupation of the shoal since its independence.] It also explains that the Exclusive Economic Zone claim on the waters around Scarborough is different from the sovereignty exercised by the Philippines in the shoal.

Both PRC China and Taiwan were claiming the whole West Philippine Sea (South China Sea to them) based on Mongol Map when the extinct Chinese Kingdom was under the rules of Mongols.