Scarborough Shoal

Old maps dating back to Spanish colonial times may hold the key to the claim of the
Philippines to Scarborough Shoal.
Known as Bajo Scarburo, the shoal now called Panatag by the Department of Foreign
Affairs (DFA), has been part of the known world since 1734, when European cartographers
began to map the world in an age of conquest.
In fact, Bajo Scarburo appeared on a map of the Archipelago Filipino as a constituent
part of Sambalez (Zambales province) in a topographic map of the country drawn under the
direction of Ildefonso de Aragon on April 15, 1820.
Senator Edgardo J. Angara, who has a collection of ancient maps of the country, told the
Philippine Daily Inquirer on Sunday that the maps would easily disprove the territorial claim of
China to the shoal and its surrounding waters, which, he said, had no historical or legal grounds
under the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea (Unclos).
Its clear that Scarborough Shoal is part of our cartography during the Spanish colonial
times, he said. We have maps (reproduced) from the original, which was made in 1734.
During that time, Scarborough is already part of the Philippines.
The DFA has asked Beijing to resolve the dispute through arbitration in the United
Nations-backed International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, but China swiftly rejected this.
As in the dispute over the Spratly Islands involving six nations, including the Philippines and
China, Beijing has always preferred bilateral, where it has a clear advantage over smaller
nations, over a multilateral approach.
But the DFA is standing by its decision to seek international arbitration with or without
China.
The manuscript maps can be found in full-color in the hardbound book titled, Mapping the
Philippines: The Spanish Period, authored by Angara, Jose Ma. A. Cario and Sonia P. Ner,
and published by the Rural Empowerment Assistance and Development in September 2009.
The book contains another map, which was published in Madrid in 1875 and
republished by the US Department of War in 1899, a year after the Philippines was ceded to the
United States in the Treaty of Paris. It bears the description: This is a general map of the
Philippine Archipelago arising from the work of the Hydrographic Commission of the Philippines
under the command of Claudio Montero y Gray.

Mother of all maps
The 1875 map was the product of the most comprehensive mapping and charting work
in the Philippines lasting more than 20 years (1849-1870).
Angara said the original maps were deposited at Spains Museo Naval de Madrid.
A Jesuit scholar, Pedro Morillo y Velarde, came up with the first complete map of the
Philippines, said the senator. This was later known as the Morillo Map, which delineated the
Philippine territory under Spanish rule, and which became the basis for the Treaty of Paris.
Three original copies of the Morillo Map are kept in Madrid, Paris and Washington, which were
parties to the treaty.
For US$20 million, the treaty gave away the Philippines to the United States following
the humiliating defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American War, which ended Spains empire in
the Americas and the Pacific and set the stage for US colonial hegemony.
We have a historic title to it (Scarborough Shoal) as early as the 17th century. Its
already on our map. All the cartographic maps subsequent to 1734 were based on the Morillo
Map. It was the mother of all maps, Angara said.




Strong evidence
That should be a strong evidence of our ownership of Scarborough, he said.
He noted that Scarborough Shoals extreme proximity to Zambales, 220 kilometers,
compared to 840 km from the nearest coast of China in Hainan province.
Asked whether the maps would establish beyond any doubt the Philippine sovereignty
over Scarborough, Angara said: Its one strong evidence, and we have other pieces of
evidence.
Angara, who coauthored Senate Bill No. 2181, which defines the baseline of the Philippine
archipelago, said maps had always interested him.
This fascination extends to collecting old maps. I think I was initially attracted to them
out of curiosity and because of their age and rarity. Maps define our territory and our sense of
nationhood. As a student of history, I realize how maps determine the fate of both the
colonized and the colonizers, and how even to this day, the matter of geographic boundaries
and the desire to expand or defend them underlie most of the turmoil in the world, he said.

The Philippines claim is based on the juridical criteria established by public international law on
the lawful methods for the acquisition of sovereignty. Among the criteria (effective occupation,
cession, prescription,conquest, and accretion), the Philippines said that the country "exercised
both effective occupation and effective jurisdiction over Bajo de Masinloc since its
independence." Thus, it claims to have erected flags in some islands and a lighthouse which it
reported to the International Maritime Organization. It also asserts that the Philippine and US
Naval Forces have used it as impact range and that its Department of Environment and Natural
Resources has conducted scientific, topographic and marine studies in the shoal, while Filipino
fishermen regularly use it as fishing ground and have always considered it their own.
It said that "The name Bajo de Masinloc (translated as "under Masinloc") itself identifies the
shoal as a particular political subdivision of the Philippine Province of Zambales, known as
Masinloc." As basis, the Philippines cites the Island of Palmas Case, where the sovereignty of
the island was adjudged by the international court in favor of the Netherlands because of its
effective jurisdiction and control over the island despite the historic claim of Spain. Thus, the
Philippines argues that the historic claim of China over the Scarborough Shoal still needs to be
substantiated by a historic title, since a claim by itself is not among the internationally
recognized legal basis for acquiring sovereignty over territory.
It also asserts that "there is no indication that the international community has acquiesced to
China's so-called historical claim," and that the activity of fishing of private Chinese individuals,
claimed to be a "traditional" exercise among these waters, does not constitute a sovereign act
of the Chinese State.
Since the legal basis of its claim is based on the international law on acquisition of sovereignty,
the Philippine government explains that its Exclusive Economic Zone claim on the waters
around Scarborough is different from the sovereignty exercised by the Philippines in the shoal.