Kiko Aquino Dee is the Executive Director of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation and a Senior Lecturer with the University of the Philippines Department of Political Science. He is a co-convenor of the third mission to the West Philippine Sea of the Atin Ito Coalition, a civilian-led nonprofit that provides support and supplies to Filipinos at the frontlines in the area. In this article, he tells us about his experience on board the MV Kapitan Felix Oca for the third mission.
The MV Kapitan Felix Oca set sail for Pag-asa Island from the Coast of El Nido, Palawan, at around 2 a.m. on May 27 after holding a successful send-off concert, the first ever Concert at Sea for Peace, on deck the previous evening. So began the third mission of the Atin Ito Coalition.
I was asleep when this happened. Having never been at sea for longer than a short ferry ride for tourists, I decided to take a Bonamine and hope that the motion sickness demon wouldn’t bother me in bed. It had worked by the time I woke up at 8 a.m. The bed was rocking with the waves, which was strangely comforting. What happened next, though, was anything but.
The captain’s voice rang out over the ship’s PA: a Chinese vessel had been spotted tailing us six nautical miles away. I wish I had recorded it. It usually takes me at least thirty minutes to get out of bed after my alarm goes off. This time, I was up and about right away.
After a quick breakfast, I gave in to my curiosity and went out on deck. The early birds entertained my questions, not the first time they’d given those answers and likely not the last. Those two white ships close by? Philippine Coast Guard (PCG). That white one further away? Chinese Coast Guard (CCG). See that speck on the horizon? Apparently, a second Chinese ship was also tailing us. What do we do if we get water-cannoned? Head indoors. I headed inside. There’s nothing else I could do.
While the Chinese would tail us for the rest of the mission, they largely let us proceed unimpeded. To be fair to the CCG, I suppose they understood that all we were doing was holding a peace concert and responded accordingly. If only their social media operators got the memo.
With that courtesy out of the way, let me state categorically that “bullying” is exactly what I mean when describing Chinese activity in the West Philippine Sea (WPS). The thing I couldn’t get over was how quickly they showed up. We were six hours away from Palawan (around 40 nautical miles, I was told), and the CCG claimed that we were in their waters. Later that day, I showed a Malaysian fisherman, who was joining the mission in solidarity, a map of our location relative to the Chinese shoreline. “Crazy,” he replied simply. Yet that crazy is what fisherfolk from Palawan face every day to make a living.
I imagine most people familiar with the WPS issue are aware of this, but experiencing it first thing in the morning is something else.
Filipino Excellence
A foreign journalist who was with us to report on the mission asked me why I thought the WPS issue resonates with so many Filipinos. For whatever reason, my brain landed on, “We need a win.”
Everywhere we look, Pinoys find reasons to be down on being Filipino. Lousy government, education crisis, toxic Filipino culture (which is really just a bunch of things that most cultures do but Filipinos claim as our own for some reason). We seem to have internalized that we’re not up to par. But our true feelings bubble up when the world recognizes Filipino excellence.
I would argue that the 2016 Arbitral Ruling on the WPS falls under that category. The world recognized the excellence of our legal experts when the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the Philippines. It was the triumph for every branch of government: the executive, the judiciary, and both houses of our legislature, all of which were at odds with each other domestically at the time. It was the fruit of true unity, not for its own sake but for the sake of a permanent core interest of the Filipino people; our territory, our sovereignty.
Though smaller in scale, Atin Ito’s Concert at Sea for Peace was another showcase of Filipino excellence from at least three very different groups of people. First, the able crew of the Felix Oca, under the leadership of Captain Jorge dela Cruz, kept us on course through Chinese challenges and rougher-than-expected weather.
Second, the team of Atin Ito volunteers, composed mostly of college students and fresh graduates, under the guidance of civilian commander Rafaela David (herself fresh off of leading Akbayan Partylist to its most successful election since 1998), executed every task and odd job asked of them with the speed and precision of seasoned sailers and the hopeful joy of young activists.
Finally, the production team from the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), led by Director Melvin Lee and our international cast of artists — Morobeats and Hori7on from the Philippines, I:Mond from South Korea, Viona from Malaysia, and Kai Mata from Indonesia — pivoted from staging the second concert on deck as planned to holding an indoor rave party in the ship’s training bridge due to inclement weather. With volunteers and other artists dancing along with every number, it appeared to be the plan all along.
An animated video of “Lupang Hinirang” played as we entered Pag-asa Island’s territorial waters. I must’ve seen this particular video dozens of times by now, but this was the first time I teared up while singing along with it. I don’t really think of myself as being particularly patriotic, but it’s hard not to be overwhelmed with pride when you see Pinoys and our Asian neighbors pull off something like this.
Nature’s Peace
With the stress of the concert behind us and the CCG trailing us from a sufficient distance for us not to be worried, we were now faced with the boredom of an approximately 48-hour journey back to Manila, and I’m pleased to report that I was stuck on a boat with some pretty awesome people.
Fisherfolk leader, Ramon Magsaysay awardee, and 2025 senatorial aspirant Ka Dodoy Ballon turned out to also be a connoisseur of dad jokes and fish puns. A few eye rolls notwithstanding, the young crew of Atin Ito volunteers ate it all up while dishing out their own fair share of Gen Z humor. In an alternate reality without internet, TV, radio, or newsprint where all candidates have to rely on is face-to-face interaction, Ballon would be making a privilege speech in the august halls of the Philippine Senate a few weeks from now about the importance of mangroves, ending with a sly, “Fish be with you.”
UNO was the game of choice on board, uniting Filipino-speaking volunteers with German- and French-speaking journalists, as well as Bahasa- and Korean-speaking performers. Hopeless with UNO myself, I sacrificed a pair of slippers to fit my copy of Splendor into my bag only to be creamed 1-2 by one of the Morobeats rappers. I may have created a monster.
My last few days onboard consisted of waking up around 8 a.m. and, after a quick breakfast, catching some sun and sea breeze on the ship’s front deck. I’d then proceed to the saloon to write this up with occasional happy interruptions to discuss Philippine party list politics, the left’s relationship with patriotism, the value (and sometimes absurdity) of peaceful protest, and Jason Aaron’s Thor run, among other things, with anyone who could tolerate a nerdy conversation.
I ate my last dinner of the voyage under the stars, which shone clearly in the absence of bright city lights. Whether those moving lights were shooting stars or Chinese drones, I decided not to dwell on it. I ended the evening on my bed being rocked to sleep by the sea’s waves.
I missed the dolphins that escorted us to Pag-asa, but I managed to see some flying fish off the coast of Mindoro on the way back to Manila. The green of the trees and the white of the sand on our islands, scattered across the navy blue of the WPS, under the blue of the morning sky and the black with scattered white of the evening, are colors that my mind’s eye will keep coming home to.
