A Philippine lawmaker yesterday planted the nation’s flag on a contested feature in the South China Sea, in a “peaceful but firm act of defiance against China’s continuing aggression” in the area.

Accompanied by a team of volunteers, Rep. Dadah Kiram Ismula of the activist Atin Ito Coalition traveled in a rubber dinghy from Thitu (Pag-asa) Island, the largest occupied Philippine feature in the South China Sea, to Sandy Cay, where she planted the flag early yesterday, the group said in a statement.

“Despite the heavy Chinese presence in the area, the team reached Pag-asa Cay 2 and raised the flag, reporting that they slipped past multiple Chinese vessels monitoring nearby waters,” it stated, using Manila’s name for the uninhabited sandbar.

“Our message is clear,” the statement quoted Ismula as saying. “The West Philippine Sea is ours. No amount of intimidation can erase that fact.”

The group released a video of the mission to Sandy Cay, which lies around three kilometers from Thitu Island, well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ). “West Philippine Sea” is the Philippines’ official term for its claimed areas of the South China Sea, which China claims under its maximalist “nine-dash line.”

Formed in 2023, the Atin Ito Coalition – the phrase means “It Is Ours” in Tagalog – is a civilian-led coalition that has conducted a number of advocacy missions to assert Philippine sovereignty over its portion of the South China Sea.

The visit to Sandy Cay was the attention-grabbing highlight of the group’s fourth mission in the region, which runs from April 30 to May 5. Like the earlier missions, this also included the delivery of fuel, food, and medicines, and other forms of support to Philippine-occupied features, including Thitu Island.

After the mission to Sandy Cay, Ismula also rode a jet ski through the waters off the island, the coalition said in a separate statement, describing it as a “symbolic action” to assert the country’s “sovereign rights and territorial integrity.”

The use of a jet ski was a wry reference to a comment by former President Rodrigo Duterte, who said during the 2016 presidential campaign that he would personally ride a jet ski to a disputed shoal and plant the Philippine flag there. Once in office, Duterte took a controversially conciliatory line on maritime disputes with China, downplaying Chinese incursions into the Philippines’ EEZ in the hope of securing Chinese infrastructure financing.

“Because a Mindanaoan promised and misled [the voters that he would] take a jet-ski ride in the West Philippine Sea, another Mindanaoan and a woman today stood up to do this for our country,” said Ismula, who is a member of the progressive Akbayan party.

According to a report by Reuters, the Atin Ito operation came after Manila said last week that ​it “had dispatched its coast guard to Sandy Cay after state ‌media ⁠reports showed Chinese coast guard personnel arriving on Sandy Cay.” One of them reportedly planted China’s flag on the atoll on April 27.

Sandy Cay was the site of a similar tit-for-tat incident in April of last year. On that occasion, the Philippine military unfurled the national flag on three contested features around Thitu Island, including Sandy Cay, days after China unfurled its own flag on one of the features.

This was just one of the numerous stand-offs that have taken place over the past few years, in which the two sides have confronted each other over disputed shoals and islands. Some of these have escalated into confrontations that have seen Philippine vessels rammed and doused with high-pressure water cannons.

Beijing, which refers to Sandy Cay as Tiexian Reef, responded to the latest Atin Ito mission in a predictable fashion, claiming the action was “illegal,” according to a report in Chinese state media.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which helped provide safe passage for the Atin Ito mission, commended the coalition for its successful flag-planting operation. One spokesperson described it as “a profound testament to the indomitable spirit of the Filipino people,” the Philippine News Agency reported.

“It reinforces the truth that the WPS is not just a strategic maritime area, but an integral part of our national heritage and livelihood,” the spokesperson said.f