However, on 15 May 2024, hundreds of Philippine flags adorned this same sea, placed at the heart of 100 fisherfolks’ boats composing the Atin Ito coalition assisting the Rotation and Resupply (RoRe) mission to the BRP Sierra Madre in the Ayungin Shoal. They are not dressed in Barong Tagalog nor Baro’t Saya, much unlike the usual way Independence Day is observed. Still, they are donned in mighty pearls of patriotism—declaring our rights to our territories, staunch and undeterred, much like how our ancestor heroes defied. 

The coalition’s initiative mirrors our assertion of our rights to our waters. For several years, despite having our territorial claim backed by the 2016 Hague Arbitral Ruling, this assertion is a brawl we face amid the continuing Chinese aggression that threatens our security and sovereign rights. From weaponizing the Chinese media to misinform the public and spin the narrative against Filipinos, to capturing our aquatic resources and prohibiting our Filipino fisherfolks, to attacking our Philippine Navy in their legal resupply mission to BRP Sierra Madre with a lethal water cannon blast, the Chinese government didn’t cease to wage provocation, intimidation and abuses—stirring us up to stand to our convictions and our tribunal victory: “West Philippine Sea is ours!”

With unfounded basis for their continued expansion, the intensity at which they exert aggression over our maritime forces reached its heights when on 17 June 2024, five Chinese vessels bordered our two Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIB) onboard to BRP Sierra Madre in an attempt to foil its resupply mission. And this is the modern invasive assault we see today. It’s not happening in our soils, across fields, or through hills. It’s in the seawater, amid the gripple of occupation and violence from the Chinese state aiming to loot away our riches, above the surge of inhumane actions against our Filipino troops safeguarding the regions within our own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

The battle isn't marked by the sound of rifles, but the havoc echoes much like a clamorous siren through the sphere of the contested area, with lights of precarious laser pointed at our heroes, with knives punctured at our boats, with the ramming against our ship–that led to the mutilation of our soldier’s thumb, and with the thievery of our owned unassembled guns. 

The chaos has been long-standing, exacerbated by the pro-Beijing stance of the past Duterte regime that demeaned our tribunal win as a mere "piece of paper."  Notwithstanding, we hold on to what that paper holds and upholds; we are Filipinos entitled to our waters. Our fisherfolk have all the rights to fish from our seas and the right to a sustainable livelihood. No one, on a groundless nine-dash-line basis, holds the equal or scant right to sail on and consume our resources as much as we.

After all, pieces of paper united with our forceful labor, stood as our weapons to struggle against this familiar track of modern occupation. On that, we anchored firmly. And from this unison of written testimony and ignited patriotic spirit among us, we act on our inherent courage to stand up against the rulers of our land, repurposing our free rein to speak up against any vice that threatens to again bear them away–so that we may cross unbound from our mountain ranges to our oceans, bearing aloft our flag and that decisive leaf of triumph. 

It’s a West Philippine Sea for a reason: Pilipinas, atin ito!