History of
The Spratly Islands/Freedomland
by
A.V.H Hartendorp
PROFILE OF THE AUTHOR
The A. V. H. Hartendorp has lived in three worlds, the Holland of his birth and childhood (1893-1904); the United States’ Far Middle West of his youth and young manhood (1904-17); and, since 1917, his true home, the Philippines. Here he began his career as psychologist and schoolteacher in the U.S. government service; then became associate editor and later editor (1920-23) of the Manila Times (he was, says Vice-Governor J. R. Hayden in his book “The Philippines”, “the best editorial writer in the Philippines”); taught again (English and psychology) at the Liceo de Manila, the University of Manila, the University of the Philippines, and the University of Santo Tomas; and, in 1925, became head of the Philippine Education Company’s publication department and editor of its monthly teachers’ publication, Philippine Education, which he gradually converted into what became, under his sole ownership from 1933 onward, the Philippine Magazine, the country’s leading literary-political publication.
From 1934 to the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, Hartendorp was not only editor of perhaps the most influential magazine in the Philippines but was also confidential adviser to President Quezon. During his internment by the Japanese in Santo Tomas, as the Camp’s secretly ap- pointed and clandestinely operating official historian, he produced, at the daily risk of his life, a history of the Camp and of the Japanese occupation of the country which, running to a typescript of over 4,000 pages, has not yet been published, although large sections of it were used by U.S. Army authorities in the prosecution of Japanese war criminals.
Unable to revive the Philippine Magazine after Liberation, and after having served President Osmeña until the end of his term as he had previously served Quezon, he was in 1947 invited to take over the editorship of the American Chamber of Commerce Journal. Under Hartendorp’s expert guidance the Journal soon became, and still continues, as distinctive and influential a magazine in its way and time as was the Philippine Magazine in its.
Today, surrounded at his family residence, “Gracehouse” in Quezon City, by his 7 children by two marriages, 17 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, Hartendorp can look back upon a full and useful life of which only the highlights have been covered here. Suffice it to say that he has also, in his time, been an amateur boxer and fencer, a non-professional but nevertheless eager anthropologist, an indefatigable hiker of Mountain Province trails, and an active patron and supporter of the arts and sciences. His published works include, besides a vast and uncounted number of editorials and articles, “A Few Poems and Essays”, 1951; “Short History of Industry and Trade of the Philippines-From Pre Spanish Times to the End of the Roxas Administration”, 1953; “History of Industry and Trade of the Philippines. . . . to the End of the Quirino Administration” 1958; and now its full sequel, “The Magsaysay Administration – A Critical Assessment.”
THE BOOK
IN “The Magsaysay Administration”, as in the latter half of its predecessor, “History of Industry and Trade of the Philippines… to the End of the Quirino Administration”, A. V. H. Hartendorp again exercises his difficult specialty with conspicuous success – the writing of current history: current, in that the events happened only yesterday; history, as opposed to a mere chronicling of events, by virtue of the author’s ability to relate these events, and thus to give them real meaning and significance, to both the past and the future.
In recent years, Hartendorp has seen developments in the Philippines taking, in his opinion, a distinctly wrong turn from a free enterprise to a controlled economy, a situation which, deploring, he began to report, expose, and combat in those chapters of his previous book covering the Quirino administration. This he now continues, and intensifies, in the present work.
Hartendorp saw the late President Magsaysay built up into a towering figure of a great national and even world leader; but, while fully aware of the many noble qualities of the man, he could not agree that his administration of affairs measured up to that reputation.
Speaking for himself, Hartendorp says that he was troubled from the first about having to contribute to a weakening of what had become a world-inspiring myth concerning the personality of am a n who is today a highly honoured figure in the free world as well as something of a national hero at home. Not wishing under these circumstances to rely only on the opinions which he had himself formed, he submitted his introductory, and most personally critical, chapter to a number of the late President’s closest friends and associates and will say only that without exception they expressed themselves, although some with reluctance, in terms which supported his own judgment.
“NEVERTHELESS”, says Hartendorp, “here goes forth a book which, close-hauled though it may be, sails out into the winds and currents of an ocean of world opinion with the master disliking the course but unwilling, even if he were able, to alter it by a single degree”.
HISTORY
OF
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
OF THE PHILIPPINES
THE
MAGSAYSAY
ADMINISTRATION
By A. V. H. HARTENDORP
PHILIPPINE EDUCATION COMPANY
MAILA
1961
THE SPRATLY ISLANDS
The outlook for an increasing sale of Taiwan products is bright and they are not complaining.
A general trade treaty, however, is still to be negotiated. The Spratly Islands- “The Kingdom of Humanity” – “Freedomland”. Early in 1955, the Manila news- papers began to carry stories about a mysterious “Kingdom of Humanity”, situated somewhere west of the Philippines in the South China Sea, with a population of some three or four thousand Indonesians, Malays, Chinese, Japanese, Americans, and Frenchmen, and ruled by two Americans. The source of these stories was a former enlisted m a n in the U.S. Army, Morton F. Meads, who had been honourably discharged in Manila in March, 1946. He claimed that he had “discovered” the Kingdom in 1945 when he sailed out of Jolo in a Moro vinta. After two days’ sailing he landed on the biggest of the islands, called “Amity Island”, ac- cording to him one of the “Manity Islands” group, and found that it was ruled by a “King’, Willis Alva Ryant, and his Executive Secretary, Victor Anderson. The King ruled under a constitution, of which Meads showed a copy. He said that he had been appointed consul and commercial agent and that he had also been commissioned to seek recognition of the new state as well as charged with establishing a supply system for the needs of the population. To this end, it was reported, he had organized the “Philip- pine Pabulum Company’ (pabulum, Latin for food). Later he organized the “MacArthur Corporation” which was to engage in copra-making and pearl-diving30. He ordered postage stamps printed in Manila depicting the typical mushroom cloud of an exploding atomic bomb, suggesting that the Kingdom was a place of refuge.
30The Philippine Pabulum Co., Inc. was actually organized in June 1949, with unauthorized capital of ₱50,000, to engage in agricultural operations in Cotabato, and the MacArthur Mining Co., Inc. was organized in January, 1952, with an authorized capital of ₱1,000,000, to engage in mining and petroleum development. Meads spent the first years after his discharge from the Army mainly in the surplus army goods business.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
He also attempted to get paper money printed. Meads went so far as to have former Senator Camilo Osias “appointed” the Kingdom’s resident Minister and Consul General in the Philippines.
The appearance of the strange stamps led to postal authorities to open an investigation, but Meads could not be found. Philippine Armed Forces authorities were taking an interest and sent an amphibian patrol bomber, commanded by Major Godofredo Hernandez, from Zamboanga west to fly over the Spratly group, but aerial photographs which were taken showed no indications that any of the islands were inhabited, although a view of the largest island, Itu Aba, showed the remains of a wharf and some ruined buildings.
Shortly afterward, newsmen found Meads in Osias’ office and brought him to Brig. Gen. Pelagio A. Cruz who was interested in the possible military value of the Spratlys
to the Philippines. Meads insisted that the Kingdom of Humanity existed but said that he was not sure of the exact location, although he believed they were probably in the Spratly group. He advised against the sending of an expedition until he could make the necessary arrangements for its reception. He said that the Japanese had used the islands as a submarine base during the war and that they had built buildings and a wharf on the largest.
The day following his interview with General Cruz, Meads was picked up by the Manila police on several pending charges in both civil and criminal cases in connection with sums of money and sales of shares, and he was also charged with use of the mails in the distribution of indecent literature, but in the end these cases were all dismissed.
Philippine military authorities, meanwhile, sent Major Hernandez on a second flight to the Spratlys, this time ac- companied by navy and air intelligence officers.
THE SPRATLY ISLANDS
Their report on the vital proximity of the group to the Philippines was reported to have prompted Vice-President Carlos P. Garcia, concurrently Secretary of Foreign Affairs, to recommend to President Magsaysay that the Philippines lay claim to the group.
The Chinese Nationalist Government, however, promptly announced, through Ambassador Chow Shu-kai, that it would contest any Philippine move to claim or occupy the islands as they formed a part of China’s territory. Public interest died down, but was revived a year later when a Filipino, Tomas A. Cloma, laid claim to the Spratly Island group, which he renamed “Freedomland.”
During the ensuing months confusion developed over the identity of the islands which were frequently referred to interchangeably as the Spratlys and the Paracels.
Spratly Island itself, which Cloma renamed Ramon Island, lies some 300 miles directly west of the southern end of Palawan, and is the westernmost island of the group. I t Aba, the largest island, which Cloma renamed Mac- Arthur Island, lies some 180 miles northeast of Spratly Island. The two small North Danger Islands renamed Irenia and Ciriaco, which are the northernmost of the islands claimed by Cloma, lie some 60 miles north of Itu Aba and some 340 miles west of the northern tip of Palawan.
The area claimed by Cloma was in the shape of a rhomboid, covering some 65,000 square miles, immediately west of Palawan.
Spratly Island proper, is about equally distant from Cape St. Jacquis, Vietnam, as it is from the southern tip of Palawan.
The Spratlys consist of “islands, islets, sand cays, coral reefs, and fishing grounds.”. The largest island, Itu Aba, is only about two square miles in area. The islands and islets were inhabited only by flocks of birds.
The Paracel Islands do not lie within the area claimed by Cloma but much farther north, at about the latitude of San Fernando, La Union.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
They lie about equally distant, roughly 250 miles, from the large Chinese island of Hainan and the coast of Vietnam, at about the latitude of Hue.
Fishing boats belonging to Tomas A. Cloma, and with his consent, made a number of visits to various of the small islands of the Spratly group between 1947 and 1950 in looking for better fishing grounds. Big hauls of fish were obtained, but in 1950 Cloma decided that his boats need not go out that far and the trips were discontinued. A-l though this was the year when Cloma established his nautical school in Manila, the Philippine Maritime Institute, he kept the islands in mind and considered plans to establish an ice plant and cannery on I t Aba and also to exploit the guano deposits on the islands.
Early in 1956 he and his associates decided to send out an expedition and a farewell dinner given on March 1 was attended by Vice-President Garcia, Senator Lorenzo Tañada, and Auditor-General Manuel Agregado as the honour guests. A few days later the motorship PMI-IV, training ship of the nautical school, with Tomas Cloma’s brother, Captain Filemon Cloma, in command, left Manila on a scheduled 38-day trip.
On May 15 Tomas Cloma addressed a letter to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs informing him that about forty citizens of the Philippines were undertaking survey and occupation work “in a territory in the China Sea outside of Philippine waters and not within the jurisdiction of any country”, and that the territory being occupied was being claimed by him and his associates. Due notice had been posted on each of the islands surveyed and occupied.
Cloma enclosed a mimeographed map of the area claimed, together with a mimeographed “Notice to the Whole World”, copies of which he also sent to the newspapers.
“FREEDOMLAND”
It read:
“Greetings:“Notice is hereby served to the WHOLE WORLD that the under- signed in his behalf and in behalf of his Associates, and as citizens of the Philippines, claims ownership over a territory bounded as follows:
[Table of points and their latitude and longitude]
[Table of distances between points]
“This territory is composed of islands, sand clays, sand bars, coral reefs, and fishing ground with a total area of about SIXTY-FOUR THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX (64,976) square nautical miles.
“This claim is based on the rights of discovery and/or occupation, open, public, and adverse as against the WHOLE WORLD.
“Manila, Philippines, May 15, 1956.
“TOMAS CLOMA