ADVERSITY INTO OPPORTUNITY

January 4, 2025 Opinion

While everybody was focused in making preparations for the celebration of the new year not many were interested initially about a report regarding a submersible drone that was found and retrieved by fishermen along the waters off
the coast of San Pascual in Masbate province. That discovery subsequently led to the suspicion and belief that the
submersible drone, which apparently malfunctioned, was of foreign origin more particularly and allegedly a
submersible “spy” drone manufactured by China. These are some serious allegations considering that the drone was found in the internal waters of the country right in the middle of the Philippine archipelago.

A quick check online will show us that San Pascual in Masbate province is in the Central Philippines and is an island surrounded by Naga to the North, Legazpi to the East, Masbate City and Roxas to the South, and Oriental Mindoro to the West. If this was indeed a Chinese submersible spy drone what was it doing so far inland in the internal waters of the Republic of the Philippines? It is quite unnerving to find out that the Chinese through their surveillance equipment, military or otherwise, are practically inside the Philippine archipelago and conducting their nefarious business of gathering vital intelligence information.

For us laymen, the Archipelagic doctrine is enshrined in our 1987 Philippine Constitution specifically under
Article I (National Territory) which is stated thus: “The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with
all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial, and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the Philippines.”

From the above we have the definition of what an internal water is, and it is, “The waters around, between, and
connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the Philippines.” Another piece of intriguing report from the recovered alleged Chinese submersible spy drone was revealed by Masbate regional police director General Andre Dizon who informed media through an interview that based on their open-source research in the internet HY-119, which is the marking etched on the drone refers to a Chinese underwater navigation and communication system and that it has an antenna and an eye that can be used for viewing.

Based on our research, this can be used for monitoring and reconnaissance. If what Dizon said is correct then we can
assume that China is already conducting a massive surveillance, monitoring and intelligence gathering operation within the country using sophisticated equipment and technology. While we can always file a diplomatic protest on the matter for violations of our sovereignty and territory against China one can also look at the opportunity presented to the country with the recovery of this sophisticated piece of machinery that we can then back engineer to improve our own drone technology. As we can recall reverse engineering or back engineering is the “act of copying the product of another company by looking carefully at how it is made” (Cambridge Dictionary).

A more precise definition provided by the internet is, “a process or method through which one attempts to
understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software
accomplishes a task with very little (if any) insight into exactly how it does so. Depending on the system under consideration and the technologies employed, the knowledge gained during reverse engineering can help with repurposing obsolete objects, doing security analysis, or learning how something works.” Now that the recovered drone is in the hands of the government perhaps our mechanical and software engineers can start extracting
information from the said surveillance and monitoring equipment gathering all relevant information regarding its use and function.

After which the gathered information is combined and utilized to design a new object that is locally made. Eventually that new object will have to be reviewed and tested to determine whether it is more or less an exact copy of the
Chinese drone version that was recovered. Finally this new reverse engineered object/drone can now be released and deployed in the waters in the West Philippine sea to add to the monitoring equipment currently being utilized by our coast guard in protecting our territory against China’s expansionist ambition in South East Asia.