MANILA, Philippines- Pinalagan ng National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) ang pag-angkin ng Tsina sa Palawan Island.
Makikita kasi sa Chinese social media platforms ang pahayag ng Tsina ukol sa hurisdiksyon at pag-aari nito sa Palawan Island.
Sa isang kalatas, sinabi ng NHCP na may umiikot kamakailan na post sa Chinese social media platforms gaya ng Weibo at Rednote, nagsasabi na ang isla ng Palawan ay dating nabibilang sa Tsina, inangkin at pinamahalaanan lamang ng Pilipinas.
“In the contested claim, Palawan island was called ‘Zheng He Island’ after the famous Chinese explorer and seafarer who travelled the seas and oceans of Asia from the 1300s to the 1400s,” ang sinabi ng NHCP.
“It is necessary to note that exploration does not equate to sovereign ownership,” ayon pa rin sa NHCP sabay sabing, “there is no existing evidence to support the settlement of a permanent Chinese population in Palawan.”
Inihayag pa ng NHCP na “there are no accounts of Chinese settlement seen in available documents, as early as 1521, through the accounts of Antonio Pigafetta who was part of the Magellan’s expedition, and the first circumnavigation of the world.”
“Palawan was populated by communities of similar cultural affinity with the rest of our archipelago. The head of the expedition had, in fact, made a blood compact with the chief of the community that the NHCP recognized to be in the present day Sitio Tagusao, Brooke’s Point, Palawan,” paliwanag nito.
“This does not, however, preclude the existence of trade relations as our ancestors have, as we are at present, been trading with our neighbors for millennia,” giit ng NHCP.
Ang NHCP, ang ahensya ng pamahalaan na may mandato na i-promote ang kasaysayan ng bansa, nagpahayag na ang historical maps mula sa iba’t ibang European cartographers mula 1500s hanggang 1800s “recognized the inclusion of Palawan Island in the Philippine archipelago as administered by the Sultanate of Sulu and the Spanish Captain-Generalcy of the Philippines.”
“Later, the 1898 Treaty of Paris, amended by the 1900 Treaty of Washington, clearly defined the areas that would become our republic’s territory in the present day,” dagdag ng NHCP.
Ayon sa NHCP, wala sa alinmang kalapit-bansa ng Pilipinas ang umangkin sa soberanya ng Philippine territory hinggil sa “baseless and inaccessible historical fiction,” ikonsidera na rito ang mga naunang politikang Filipino na malapit ang koneksyon sa sultanates at rajahnates sa ibang bahagi ng Southeast Asia.
“Neither does vassalage by a predecessor nation equate to sovereign rule in the present day. Early Filipino polities in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao were, at one point or another, closely connected to sultanates and rajahnates in other parts of Southeast Asia. However, our neighbors do not claim sovereignty over Philippine territory over baseless and inaccessible historical fiction,” litaniya ng NHCP.
“The historical fact clearly and convincingly shows that the Philippines and its predecessor state actors have always exercised sovereignty over our archipelago and over Palawan in particular. No other state contests this fact. Not one. This has been accepted by the international community for more than a century,” ang tinuran ng NHCP.
Inulit ng NHCP ang polisiya ng gobyerno ng Pilipinas na hindi isusuko ang soberanya ng bansa.
“The NHCP stands by the policy of the rest of the Philippine Government that not one inch of Filipino sovereign territory is for sale, nor can any be claimed by states that purport to be our friends yet continue to undermine regional stability through the reprehensible use of questionable historical data,” ang sinabi ng NHCP.
“Palawan is and will always be Filipino,” ang pahayag pa rin nito. Kris Jose
