Panatag Shoal – also known as Bajo de Masinloc to the people of Zambales and as Scarborough Shoal in international maps – may well become a flashpoint in the ongoing war of words between China and the United States. Panatag is a piece of rock in the South China Sea (SEA) about 230 kilometers west of Zambales. It is, therefore, well within the 370-kilometer Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). We do not own it but we have the right to develop its economic resources under UNCLOS. But Panatag is also within a wide area of the South China Sea enclosed by a nine-dash line claimed by China as part of its historic sovereign territory. China has a name for the island – Huangyan.

No solution in sight to SCS problem. (2018, January 27). Manila Bulletin, p. 10.