Private claims of the South China Sea islands were launched in mid-1950s, led by Filipino adventurer and fishing magnate Tomas Cloma Sr. who found several unoccupied groups of islands in the South China Sea.
Cloma and his son, owner of a private maritime training institute in Manila, aspired to open a cannery and develop guano deposits in the Spratlys. It was principally for economic reasons, therefore, that he “discovered” and claimed islands in the Spratlys.
On May 11, 1956, Cloma, together with 40 men, took formal possession of the islands, lying some 612 km west of the southern end of Palawan and named them Freedomland. Four days later, on May 15, 1956, Cloma issued and posted copies of his “Notice to the Whole World” on each of the islands as a manifestation of unwavering claims over the territory.
This declaration was met with hostile reactions from several neighboring countries, especially Taiwan. As a result, on September 24, 1956, Taiwan reoccupied nearby Itu Aba Island (also known as Taiping Island), which it had abandoned in 1950, and intercepted Cloma’s men and vessels found within its immediate waters. Mainland China also restated its own claim.
That time, Manila disavowed participation to Cloma’s adventures but left door open by describing islands as terra nullius (nobody’s land).
However, Cloma’s territorial claim later formed part of the justification of territorial claims by the Philippines of the Spratly islands along with doctrines from the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
In 2014, the Philippines sought adjudication of territorial dispute with China at the International Court of Arbitration. In its pleadings, the Philippines abandoned efforts to assert succession to the Cloma claim, and instead asserted a 200-mile territorial claim under the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) Law of the Sea.
MANILA BULLETIN
