Spratlys Fort Loneliness for RP men
Spratlys Fort Loneliness for RP men
By Ruben Alabastro
PAGASA, Spratly Islands (Reuter): Standing at the railings of his old, creaky warship, the Filipino navy officer sounded like he genuinely relished the idea of China grabbing Philippine-held Pagasa Island lying beyond the ship's bow.
"I really wished they'd take it and then we'll harass them every day with our planes. We'd make it very costly for them until they were sorry they ever came," he said.
Scarcely more than a strip of land and a clump of trees in the South China Sea, 22-hectare (54-acre) Pagasa is the biggest of eight islands occupied by Filipino soldiers in the disputed Spratly Islands group.
Believed to be sitting atop huge deposits of oil and gas, the Spratlys are claimed wholly or in part by China, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
To diplomats, the islands are potentially Asia's next flashpoint.
To the 35 soldiers keeping a 24-hour watch for hostile ships, Pagasa, the Filipino word for "Hope", is a bleak, god-forsaken outpost where no children live, hardly a flower grows and no mail comes.
In the two hours it takes to roam the island, one will be lucky to find a dog, and there is no moviehouse, no hospital and no stores.
A weather-beaten chapel, looking neglected as though even God has ceased to dwell in it, stands near the navy barracks. A priest comes to say mass every three months, weather permitting.
Buffeted by high winds and storms six months of the year, this is a place for men whose homes are elsewhere, whose loves are elsewhere.
In 1989, a sailor went amok and shot and wounded three fellow sailors on learning his particular love had run off with another man. Colleagues shot the man to death.
"This is the most peaceful town in the whole Philippines," police chief Rolando Amurao boasted nevertheless, referring to the eight-island cluster called Kalayaan (Freedomland), which Manila claims.
Amurao's eight-man police force had to contend with only two crimes during the past two years, a murder in 1993 and another in 1994, with soldiers as offenders and victims.
The police blotter has been spotless this year.
A hundred people live on the eight islands, mostly transient fishermen and carpenters. The rest are sailors and air-force men, some rotated every 45 days and others every 90 days.
"The people who are sent here are those who need to be reformed," a navy commander said, half-jokingly.
They get hazard pay, called a "loneliness allowance", equivalent to 50 percent of their monthly salary.
"The No. 1 problem here is loneliness, the second is food. There are no stores where you can buy things to eat," said Petty Officer First Class Rodrigo Sernadilla, 40.
On his second stint on the island, he was to leave for home later in the day.
"Don't send us priests, send us women," a sailor shouted as Sernadilla busied himself with packing up his things.
Mayor Gil Policarpio compared Pagasa to "an empty house". It was election day when Filipino and foreign journalists came to the island and Policarpio was running for a second term, promising to build livelihood projects and a public market.
Only 54 of Kalayaan's 100 residents turned up at the polling precinct. Policarpio won by 10 votes over two rivals.
"We are here to strengthen our claim to sovereignty. The best thing is to establish our position," he said.
Despite a confrontation between two Chinese vessels and a Philippine Navy ship on Mischief Reef the day before, nothing on Pagasa suggests the Philippines was on any kind of alert.
Heavy tarpaulins covered the island's four anti-aircraft guns and bunkers squatting in the curve of the white beaches were gathering cobwebs.
What would you do if the Chinese came?
"Surrender," one of the sailors said with playful glee.