AFP, NSC reject claims that Batanes part of China

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the National Security Council (NSC) on Friday dismissed the claims that Batanes, the northernmost and smallest province in the country, allegedly belongs to China.

In a statement, AFP spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad emphasized that the Philippines’ sovereignty over Batanes is “settled, indisputable, and non-negotiable.”

“The province of Batanes is an integral part of our republic, protected by international law and entrenched in our historic national boundaries,” he said.

Trinidad said that the AFP cannot and will not let such attempts of “foreign malign influence” go unchallenged.

“We view this latest disinformation as salami slicing in the information domain. It is the systematic manufacturing of false historical and legal narratives intended to desensitize the international community, gradually alter the status quo and establish a pretext for future expansion,” he said.

“Leaving these attacks on our cognitive domain unanswered allows revisionist history to take root," he added.

Trinidad said the AFP remains fully committed to protecting the Philippines' cognitive domain, maintaining total maritime domain awareness, and defending the territorial integrity of the country.

This comes amid reports that numerous researchers from Chinese universities and institutes declared that Manila’s control over Batanes supposedly lacks historical and legal basis.

The scholars said that Batanes constitutes a geographical extension of Taiwan, with sovereignty belonging to China.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. earlier called claims that Batanes belongs to China, by way of Taiwan, as “baseless and ludicrous,” saying all academics should immediately debunk the theory.

Teodoro said there is a danger that Chinese citizens believe the claims.

Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Eduardo Oban Jr. said that they view such reports with serious concern, stressing that claims that Batanes belongs to China have no merit at all.

“But from a national security perspective, we cannot ignore how false narratives can be repeated to manufacture ambiguity where none exists,” Oban said in a statement.

As the Philippines mark the 10th anniversary of the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award, Oban reminded what is at stake when such baseless narratives are allowed to harden into claims.

“Claims are used to justify presence, and presence is used to normalize coercion. That is why we will not allow manufactured history to become manufactured rights, nor a fabricated dispute to take root over what is unquestionably ours,” he said.

“Ten years after the Arbitral Award, we know how false claims begin, and we will not allow them to take root. Batanes is, and will always remain, an integral and indivisible part of the Republic of the Philippines. There is no dispute to settle, no claim to negotiate, and no ambiguity to resolve,” he added.

The Philippine government sued China before an international arbitral tribunal in The Hague in 2013. It ruled in favor of the Philippines in July 2016 when it junked China's nine-dash claim over the South China Sea.

China, however, rejected the Philippines' call to comply with the 2016 arbitration ruling, calling the decision "illegal and invalid.” —AOL, GMA News