Critical Sabina shoal

China is definitely gearing up her grand plan to deny us access to our own oil and gas reserves in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) by deliberately ramming and punching holes in the hull of the Philippine Coast Guard’s (PCG) largest ship.

While China’s repeated ramming of the BRP Teresa Magbanua is cause for grave concern, security officials say it was tactically meant to disable and force another Filipino law enforcement ship to steam home for repairs.

By now, the Chinese ramming and employing of the high seas version of shouldering Filipino vessels aside in order to send them home for repairs has become all too familiar.

In the case of the damaged Teresa Magbanua, however, PCG officials insist the ship will stay put at Sabina Shoal despite it needing urgent repairs and the difficulty of delivering supplies to its personnel.

But whatever the PCG’s plans, the Teresa Magbanua’s deployment highlights the fact that the once quiet Sabina Shoal is now strategically vital to both the Philippines and China.

Previously, Sabina Shoal was better known as the mid-point of the resupply missions to the military outpost at Ayungin Shoal.

But in recent months it gained focus following the suspicions of security officials that the Chinese were planning to turn the shoal into another man-made garrison.

Consequently, the Teresa Magbanua steamed to the shoal with the official mission of preventing the further destruction of the shoal’s corals, and anchored there indefinitely.

China has since then furiously demanded the Philippines pull out the PCG vessel. But Filipino officials remained adamant and an obviously frustrated China eventually risked the contemptible ramming maneuvers two weeks ago.

China’s use of illegal force amid the tense standoff, however, unveiled the larger picture of what is really at stake: our oil and natural gas reserves at nearby Recto Bank.

Sabina Shoal is also midway and below the undisputed Philippine-owned Recto Bank, an underwater reef formation that is said to hold the most reserves of oil and natural gas in the whole South China Sea (SCS).

In the country’s 2016 arbitral case versus China, Reed or Recto Bank was deemed undisputedly ours following the crucial ruling that the nearby Itu Aba feature was a rock and not an island.

Now, if the status of Recto Bank had been left vague, the Philippines would have had only one option to tap the resources there — enter a joint development agreement with China.

But as it is and despite China’s sweeping claim over the SCS, China can’t do anything but lasciviously covet Recto Bank. China cannot stop us from unilaterally exploring and exploiting its resources.

And, we do sorely need Recto Bank if we are to prevent an economic collapse following the depletion of Malampaya’s natural gas reserves.

In the face of all this, Malacañang last July quietly lifted the 2014 moratorium on oil and natural gas exploration at Recto Bank and not only allowed a Filipino firm to start searching there but also guaranteed the Navy’s protection of any approved vessels searching for oil and natural gas.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte lifted the 2014 moratorium in 2020, but re-imposed it in 2022 on the urging of an unidentified Chinese official. Duterte then tried negotiating an oil and gas joint development agreement with China only to stop the bilateral talks on fears the talks violated the Constitution.

In any event, what is clearly emerging from the Sabina Shoal incident is that China is throwing down obstacles so that we can’t freely access and explore Recto Bank.

Conducting brute aggressive and oppressive maneuvers at Sabina Shoal and elsewhere is clearly meant, says Filipino maritime expert Jay Batongbacal, to aggravate and coerce our officials and policy makers to stop the seabed explorations and research until these same officials submit to China’s conditions for the joint development of Recto Bank and elsewhere in the WPS.

Such motives should contextualize why China often beats her war drums and why we must frequently steel our nerves for the long haul ahead.