PH, Viet sailors hold Spratly games
FORGET about the World Cup. This is about world peace.
With the threat of being drawn into war against China lurking in the shadows, Filipino and Vietnamese naval forces yesterday temporarily left their garrisons in the disputed Spratly Islands in the middle of the South
China Sea for a day of friendly football match.
And there was no other better venue to hold the event than on an island disputed by the Philippines and Vietnam—and China.
Sailors from the Philippine Navy and the Vietnamese People’s Navy engaged in the daylong sports and cultural presentations—as well as drinking beer—on Southwest Cay, a Vietnamese-controlled island that the Philippines occupied until 1975.
Philippine Navy officials billed the event as a chance to show the world there can be harmony in the South China Sea despite a web of overlapping claims to the potentially energy-rich waters.
The display of unity will surely not go unnoticed in Beijing.
“This is part of the confidence-building measures to ease the tension in the West Philippine Sea,” Commander Gregory Gerald Fabic, a spokesperson for the Philippine Navy, told the INQUIRER over the phone, using the Philippine name for the waters within the country’s 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone.
“The interaction between the two navies was actually part of the previous bilateral agreements that the Philippines and Vietnam signed,” Fabic added.
Called Pugad Island by the Philippines, Southwest Cay lies just 2.82 km of the Philippine-occupied Northeast Cay, or Parola Island.
The 12-hectare island, located in the northern tip of the Spratly group of islands, is also being claimed by Taiwan.
Pugad Island, almost equidistant from the Philippines and Vietnam, is known to the Vietnamese as Dao Song Tu Tay and to the Chinese as Nanzi Dao.
Lost to Vietnam
The Philippines lost Pugad Island to South Vietnam in 1975 when the soldiers guarding it went to Parola for the birthday party of their commanding officer. But there was a storm that day and it might have influenced the decision of the soldiers to temporarily regroup on Parola.
There was a report that South Vietnamese officials sent Vietnamese prostitutes to the birthday party to lure the Filipino soldiers away from Pugad. It was said to be a birthday present to the Filipino commander and a move by the South Vietnamese forces to befriend Filipino troops guarding the Spratly Islands.
The Filipinos never expected the South Vietnamese to resort to trickery, as the Philippines, the United States and South Vietnam were allies in the Vietnam War.
But when they returned to Pugad, they were surprised to find a company of South Vietnamese forces there and the Philippine flag replaced by the South Vietnamese flag on the pole that they themselves had set up on the island.
The Filipinos returned to Parola for fear that it might be the South Vietnamese’s next target.
The South Vietnamese did not move on Parola, even after the unification of North and South Vietnam after the war, but Pugad has remained under Vietnamese control.
Improving relations
In a joint statement, the Philippine and Vietnamese navies said yesterday’s event on Pugad was “part of the effort to improve relations and cooperation” between the naval services of the two countries.
“Both the Philippine Navy and the Vietnamese People’s Navy deem that this activity serves as a proof that disputes do not hinder development of practical and tangible cooperation between the two navies,” they said.
“Conversely, this also serves as a model of cooperation for other navies to emulate,” it said, without naming any other countries.
China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims in the Spratlys, a group of mostly barren islands, reefs and atolls that are believed to be sitting atop oil and gas deposits and straddle some of the world’s most traversed sea-lanes.
The Philippines and Vietnam are the rivals that most feel China’s wrath over their claims to territory in the South China Sea.
To peacefully resolve the dispute, Manila has filed an arbitration suit against Beijing in the United Nations International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Following Manila’s lead, Hanoi has said it is considering bringing legal action against Beijing.
Players from both sides
Instead of playing against each other, Fabic said Filipino and Vietnamese naval forces formed two teams each composed of players from both navies.
He said the teams played football, volleyball and tug-of-war. They also put on cultural shows and shared food and beer, he added.
As of 5 p.m. yesterday, Fabic said the Philippine Navy had yet to receive a report about which team won the games.
In their joint statement, the two navies said navies of the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) had been holding “personnel interactions…as part of the confidence-building measures within the region.”
“This year, the interaction between the Philippine Navy and the Vietnamese People’s Navy focuses on the discussion of interoperability and best practices in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. The discussion is very timely as the Asian region is now entering the southwest monsoon season,” they said.
According to Fabic, the event was part of an agreement that the Department of National Defense entered into with its Vietnamese counterpart in October 2010.
During the 7th Asean Navy Chiefs Meeting held in Makati City last year, Fabic said, the Philippines and Vietnam reiterated their commitment to improve the cooperation between their naval forces.
In February, close cooperation between the two navies was again discussed during the Asean Naval Working Group on Common Protocols on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief.