[OPINION] Happy World Oceans Day, Admiral
He was the first uniformed officer I knew in a professional capacity. When I first met him, he was still Commodore. My initial reaction was, “Commodore, sounds amazing; sounds high-ranking. This person must be very powerful.” Observing his poise at that moment, in his carefully ironed, dark blue uniform decorated with more than 20 colorful pins on his left chest, I wondered what kind of person was hiding behind that façade.
I had excitedly accepted the offer to become part of the first team of analysts for the National Coast Watch Center on December 29, 2015.
My first months in the Center were full of pressure. We were young and knew very little about maritime security. But blank slates we were, curious and eager to serve the country in our respective capacities.
That was the way he looked at us. He had so much faith in our potential. Despite the scarcity of maritime security specialists in the country, he believed he could make dedicated ones out of us. So, first on his list of priorities was to “marine-ate” us. The indoctrination came in the form of marathon lectures which he himself conducted.
He summarized the 320 provisional articles of UNCLOS, which he specifically told us to call “LOSC” or “Law of the Sea Convention.” According to him, the term “UNCLOS” was already obsolete. He taught us the difference between TS (territorial sea), CZ (contiguous zone), EEZ (exclusive economic zone), CS (continental shelf), and ECS (extended continental shelf). He drew lines and shapes on the board, asked us questions to check if we understood the basic points, and repeated these differences over and over until we mastered them.
He introduced us to various maritime laws, both domestic and international. He gave us maritime cases we had to digest like we were law students. He showed us that in order to become successful maritime security specialists, we had to learn the various laws that overlaid the seas. (READ: Gov't neglecting duty to defend PH territory – maritime expert)
“Only in understanding these laws will you efficiently recognize and identify anomalies or suspicious activities at sea,” he explained.
He also presented to us various international maritime conventions like the SOLAS Convention, the MARPOL 73/78 Convention, the COLREGS, the London Convention, and the SUA, among many others. He specifically instructed us to read and write a one-to-two-paragraph summary of each just to make sure we read further about them. He also required us to make a table of the conventions and tick which ones the Philippines had ratified.
“The country will only be able to maximize the benefits of having ratified these conventions by showing due regard to its own obligations to the conventions,” he would stress to us.
My favorite lesson of all was when he taught Hugo Grotius and his Freedom of the Seas or Mare Liberum vis-à-vis Mare Clausum.
“Nobody owns the sea; nobody owns the fish. The LOSC is so carefully crafted to emphasize our responsibility as stewards of the sea: to explore, exploit, conserve, and manage marine resources for the common good of humanity. It is our responsibility to share the blessings of the sea,” was his heartfelt reminder to us every time he got the chance.
Printers and photocopying machines went on overdrive, since we each had to have a copy of his readings.
“You are paid to read,” he barked each day.
So, we read, read, and read. We had to make sure we had something sensible to say to his tricky questions, whose right answers only he knew.
“Do we have oil in the EEZ?”
“Who owns the fish in the EEZ?”
“Do we have an EEZ to speak of in the first place?”
Months and years went by, and we experienced more of him being a maritime leader.
I remember one day when he told us to read the entire set of the Philippine Memorial before the Arbitral Tribunal. The then-Commodore, always serious save for his mischievous eyes, sat down on one of the chairs a litte later and asked, “Tell me what you think.”
Yes, he honestly expected us to have read the memorial while he was there. That was him. He pushed us to seemingly impossible limits, and before we knew it, we learned more than we ever thought we would.
He had an answer to every question. He knew a lot, read a lot, thought a lot, and made sure he left no stone unturned every time he examined things.
“Read everything. Search those footnotes and read them, each one of them,” he would demand.
“Are you sure? Please re-check. Cite your reference.”
As subordinates to someone whose passion was working hard, the least he expected from us was equally hard work. Every time we worked overtime, he would always ask if we were already tired. Seeing him still very eager to continue working despite an already long day, it never felt right to tell him we already were.
The then-Commodore, who eventually became Rear Admiral, then Vice Admiral, and now Admiral, is everything he is now because of his own hard work. He is courageous. He is not afraid to take risks – an attitude, I’ve realized, necessary for a leader to effect change in this continuously evolving world, with people who refuse to adapt to transformations and shifting needs. (READ: Maritime expert hits Panelo for downplaying China ship harassment)
His own interpretation of the Hague’s ruling on the Philippines-China Arbitration Case in 2016 is unpopular to most Filipinos. People who judge his interpretation on its face value or refuse to examine his arguments outright accuse him of being a traitor. Regardless, he insists on the things he's worked hard analyzing.
“Am I pro-China? No. Am I pro-US? No. Then what am I? I am pro-Filipino.”
His devotion to the country is mind-blowing. He is always frank and would point out problems in the management of the country’s maritime concerns. But in the end, he always says, “Right or wrong, my country.”
The Admiral has his flaws. He may protect his personal interests, but who does not? There are times when I do not agree with his positions and/or decisions. But it is not those times when I agreed with him that I admired him most. It is the times that, no matter how disagreeable he was, he would stand by what he saw as right, and persistently preached about it, especially to those who played blind to obvious facts. I admired him most in the times that he showed that one could give so much of oneself in the name of honest and responsible service to the Philippine maritime nation. – Rappler.com
Ellaine Joy C. Sanidad is currently the Chief Intelligence Analyst of the National Coast Watch Center. She joined the Center 9 months after its inauguration in April 2015. Recently, she was appointed as Auxiliary Lieutenant of the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary, Community Relations Service-Special Support Squadron.
