A Sea of Rhetoric: Conjuring Kalayaan

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates several findings. First, there is an overwhelming congruence within the press releases of the DFA, DND and OPP in recent years, demonstrating that the primary strategy to achieve Philippine claims lies in international law and arbitration. In this way, Philippine political elites are able to represent the state as a law-abiding, peaceful member of the international community. Consequently, this allows them to dichotomously depict the PRC, implicitly and explicitly, as undermining an equitable resolution to this dispute and as bucking international norms. Furthermore, Philippine political elites may perceive no other alternative to this strategy in the face of the military might of the PRC. Second, cartography is used by Philippine political elites as a discursive argument to support Philippine claims to the WPS. However, several of these maps are challengeable, particularly historic representations of Kalayaan and Bajo de Masinloc. Third, the imagining of Philippine territory has evolved over the eras of Spanish colonialism (1521-1898), American colonialism (1898-1946) and postindependence. The year 1898 marks one significant reconceptualization of Philippine space while recent adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) marks another radical shift in understanding Philippine space.