China asserts sweeping sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, including the Kalayaan Group of Islands (Spratlys) and Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal. It’s a claim that was debunked in 2016 when the Philippines won the international arbitration case it lodged against the regional superpower, invalidating Beijing’s nine-dash-line claims over the waters.
This is how you fight China’s disinformation, retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio. “You just show the truth. What did we do about the nine-dash line? We showed there is no historical basis,” he told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) executive director Carmela Fonbuena in an interview.
“Before, in the West, people said: ‘Oh, China has an old civilization so it must be true….’ We’ve shown that it (claims over the West Philippine Sea) is quite recent. It was only in 1947 that they came out with that map. So all these narratives of China, the beginnings of that narrative, are all totally false because it starts with a false claim. It’s a false claim on top of a false claim.”
At least two other false claims by China need to be vigorously corrected, Carpio told PCIJ.
Beijing claimed that the Philippines committed to withdraw BRP Sierra Madre, a grounded but still actively commissioned Philippine Navy warship, from Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal. A handful of sailors are stationed on the ship to guard the country’s exclusive economic zone. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has rejected this claim.
Beijing also claimed that the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration awarded the Spratlys and the Paracels to China. This was recently echoed by the Chinese Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Zhou Zhiyong in a speech at the Pandesal Forum in Manila.
“Totally false,” said Carpio.
Citing China’s low trust ratings in the Philippines, Carpio is confident that Filipinos do not believe China’s lies about the South China Sea. But fighting China’s disinformation campaign is a long game and the country should be vigilant against it, he said.
“Of course, patagalan ito. You have to sustain it. China will just keep on repeating its position. We keep on repeating our position,” he said.
“We are in a battle with China for the hearts and minds of the people of the world. Not only our people, but the people of the world. So we have to be on our toes. We have to do our own research and rebut them. That’s the only way. We have to present the facts and the law. That is where we are strong,” he said.
Here are excerpts from the interview:
On fighting disinformation on the West Philippine Sea?
You just show the truth. What did we do about the nine-dash line? We showed there is no historical basis. The best place to definitively bury this disinformation is to bring it to a tribunal. We brought it to an UNCLOS tribunal. Is there a basis for this nine-dash line? Is there a historical basis that [it existed] since 2,000 years ago, as claimed by China? Totally, the tribunal says, there is no evidence of that.
In the case of the narrative that the Paracels and the Spratlys were awarded in the Cairo and Potsdam Declaration, we just showed the declaration and the history behind that. In fact, in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, they rejected the motion of the USSR to award the Paracels and Spratlys to China. It's the complete opposite. You just have to come out with the facts, and the law.
That’s how we should fight this disinformation. We talk about it. Explain why it is totally false, and all this disinformation will fall by the wayside.
Is the Filipino public so vulnerable to disinformation about the West Philippine Sea?
Let’s base it on facts. The actual surveys of SWS for the last 10 years [show that] the people don’t believe in the Chinese claims. It’s over 80% to 90% so that is almost unanimous. All we have to do is to keep on harping on the facts and the law… Of course, patagalan ito. You have to sustain it. China will just keep on repeating its position. We keep on repeating our position.
Security officials have raised concerns about Filipinos who echo Beijing claims. What do you think?
They are definitely a small group. Small but vocal. If you look at the surveys, 90% of the people are on our side. They are definitely small, but they are very vocal.
What is the danger if the fact-checking is not sustained?
Well, they might sway some people. So it’s our duty to continually object and present the real facts and present the law. Because we don’t want our people to be misled. That’s part of the competition for ideas in the marketplace.
How do we make sure that freedom of expression is not sacrificed amid the calls to correct and to call out disinformation, propaganda, and foreign influence operations?
What we should do is pass a law saying that if you are lobbying for a foreign state, you should register. So that we will know if you are receiving money to lobby for a foreign state, you must register. We will not stop them from expressing their views because it involves freedom of expression. But the moment they register, then we know where they are coming from. If they do not register, but our intelligence people can trace the funding, then they will be prosecuted. This has happened in the US and Canada. They traced the funding of the people who have been tapped by China to do some influence work in Canada and the US. We have to balance it. We require them to register [so that] we know where it is coming from. But if they don’t register, they take the risk of being discovered and penalized.
In the meantime, what we can do is just call them out.
We just have to present the facts like what we're doing now, but they're not gaining ground. I mean, they are an annoyance but we have to live with that. They are very aggressive but we just explain to the people the facts and the people will believe us and will not believe them because obviously they're peddling a lie from a foreign power that wants to seize our territory and maritime zones and nobody would want that.
How do we develop public resiliency against misinformation?
They should start in schools now, from grade school to college. They should teach the history of the West Philippines Sea. I've tried to do this with my YouTube lectures. I hope they incorporate it in the curricula — in grade school, high school, and college. That's the best place to start. You have to teach our people our history so that they know that they are being misled if there are people who say otherwise. We should put pressure on the Department of Education to include it in the curriculum. They have not been doing this. I don't know why.
Meanwhile, it's the private groups doing the work.
Meanwhile we have to do it ourselves because we have no choice.
Is there a minimum knowledge that the public should know about the West Philippine Sea? There's a lot of laws and a lot of jargon.
You need only about five hours of lecture to know all that's necessary to know. And you just have to go over that again and again to really imbibe it. The facts are not that too numerous. You can cover that in a five-hour course. The students can get a good picture already.
That will make them less vulnerable to disinformation.
They will not be misled anymore…. We are already on good footing because we have about 90% of the people believing in the arbitral award. So all we have to do is to reinforce that. To keep on reinforcing that. And to fight all new disinformation that's being thrown at us now. END