Philippines and The Spratly Islands - Overview

Overview

The Philippines, along with Vietnam, People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), Malaysia and Brunei, is a claimant country in the disputed Spratly Islands group. Currently the Philippines is occupying nine features (seven islands, three reefs):

As a comparison, Vietnam occupies six islands, seventeen reefs and three banks. The Republic of China (Taiwan) has one island and one reef. Malaysia has one artificial island and five reefs. The People's Republic of China has eight reefs.

Also, the Philippines has some features that are "virtually occupied". These are features that lie in very close proximity to Philippine-occupied features and that can be seen within the horizon. (A 15 meter-height vision gives about 9 miles (14 km) of horizon distance): North Reef, Sandy Cay or Extension Reef, Loaita Nan and Loaita Cay.

Furthermore, the features that lie to the east of the 116°E meridian, though not occupied, are largely controlled by the Philippines. This is the region that is near Palawan with the farthest feature being just 100 miles (161 km) away. Though the Philippines has enough muscle to occupy these features without receiving much protest from other claimant nations, it has decided to just concentrate its forces on Palawan. Philippine military officials often insist that these features are very near Palawan, labeling it as an "obvious" territory of the Philippines. Instead of building forces on the features, airfields and naval bases were built on Palawan’s west coast. There are many Filipino fishermen in this area. The Camago-Malampaya gas field is also located here.

For a comprehensive list of the Spratly islands with accompanying discussion, please see Spratly Islands.