If the Filipinos on the remote South China Sea island of Thitu had binoculars, they might just be envious of how their neighbors on the next island live. Current top breaking Philippine headlines regarding the nation, world, metro manila, regions and exclusive special investigative reports.
THITU ISLAND, South China Sea – If the Filipinos on the remote South China Sea island of Thitu had binoculars, they might just be envious of how their neighbors on the next island live. Just 15 miles (24 kilometers) across the shimmering sea from this rundown outpost of the Philippines lies a different world shown by an unbroken line of new, four-story white buildings. Radar towers and a lighthouse complete Subi Reef, a mini city China has raised from the sea at an astonishing pace since 2013. Subi symbolizes China’s increasingly assertive claim to most of the South China Sea, a claim it reinforces in building manmade islands from dredged sand and equipping them with runways, hangars and surface-to-air-missiles. For the 37 Filipino families who call Thitu their home, however, life is basic with just a few buildings, no television or internet, and no shops or street-side eateries. There isn’t even a street, just a dirt track used by the island’s one vehicle – a small truck. At only 37 hectares (0.37 sq km) the coral-fringed Thitu, known to Filipinos as Pagasa, is the biggest of the eight reefs, shoals and islands the Philippines occupies in the Spratly archipelago, 280 miles away from the mainland. But Thitu’s inhabitants have a strategic purpose – preserving a Philippine claim of sovereignty in the face of a resurgent China. According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, China will soon be capable of deploying fighter jets on three reefs, including Subi. By comparison, Thitu’s military muscle is a few dozen rotating troops with small arms, and a dirt runway through a patch of grass.
