# NOTE: Field notes on Scarborough

> Ten years after the 2016 arbitral ruling, Philippine fishermen are still telling Reuters the same story: they keep getting pushed off Scarborough Shoal.

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Note
- Published: 2026-07-20
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/note-field-notes-on-scarborough

## Introduction

Ten years after the **2016 arbitral ruling**, Philippine **fishermen** are still telling **Reuters** the same story: they keep getting pushed off **Scarborough Shoal**. This **note** gathers a few observations, with no claim to be exhaustive, on what this maritime **dossier** reveals about a **region** learning to live with a dispute that never quite gets settled. *Ten years is not nothing for a **legal** promise that is still waiting to be kept on the water.*

These are not final conclusions. They are observations, gathered from the available reporting, about what persists, what changes, and what most coverage never takes the time to note.

The thread running through all of it stays the same: a **decision under international law** favorable to the **Philippines**, and a **reality** on the water that keeps contradicting it, year after year, according to **Reuters**.

## Note 1 — The number that never moves

### Ten years, a number that weighs more than it should

The central figure in this **dossier** is not an amount or a distance: it is a **duration**. Ten years since the 2016 arbitral **ruling**, ten years of Philippine **fishermen** telling **Reuters** the same experience, ten years of the law saying one thing while the water keeps saying another.

A number like this never makes a headline on its own, and yet it measures something diplomatic reports rarely measure: the **exhausted patience** of a community that won a judgment without ever collecting its concrete benefit.

### What this number says about the nature of the dispute

Above all, this number says the dispute is not an incident: it is a **condition**, settled in, repeated, documented across a full **decade** by **testimonies** that, year after year, resemble each other with a troubling **consistency**. *An incident ends; a condition, on the other hand, settles in and keeps pressing until someone dislodges it.*

This **consistency**, rather than any notable variation, is itself a piece of information: it signals a **structural impasse** rather than a **problem** on a path toward gradual resolution.

## Note 2 — The presence that never stops

### A coast guard and fishing vessels, around the clock

According to **Reuters**, **China** maintains a continuous **presence** of **coast guard** and fishing vessels in the disputed Scarborough zone. This is not an occasional or symbolic presence: it is a presence organized to last, built to occupy the space rather than simply pass through it.

This continuity, documented on the ground, largely explains why Philippine **fishermen** describe a **situation** that never improves: a **permanent presence** leaves no window of **access**, even an occasional one, to traditional fishing **grounds**.

### What this permanence costs, without ever being counted

This permanence carries a cost that few reports count precisely: the cost to Philippine **coastal communities** that have depended on these **waters** for generations, and whose **access** is being restricted without any documented compensation appearing in the **sources** available. *It is easy to count ships and patrols; it is rare to count the meals missing at the far end of the chain.*

This statistical silence around the real human cost is, in itself, a **documentary gap** that more field reporting on the economic **situation** of these **communities** would be well placed to fill.

## Note 3 — A diplomatic ban, running in parallel

### The banned minister, another signal

On June 11, 2026, **China** barred Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro from entering its territory, according to **Al Jazeera**. This **diplomatic** move, distinct from the **fishermen's situation**, nonetheless belongs to the same broader climate of rising maritime **tensions**.

It is not the same story as the **Scarborough fishermen**, but it is the **same backdrop**: a bilateral relationship in which gestures of firmness keep multiplying while neither file finds any documented resolution.

### Why these two files deserve to be read together, without being conflated

These two files deserve to be read together, as two symptoms of the same regional **tension**, without being conflated as though they obeyed a single, directly verifiable **causal logic** in the available **sources**. *Two fevers in the same body do not mean the same illness; but together they still say something about the whole body.*

This parallel reading, cautious but attentive, helps better understand the **regional scale** of current **tensions** without collapsing into the simplification of a single, unproven causal narrative.

## Note 4 — Balikatan, the answer that brings everyone together

### Seventeen thousand troops, seven nations

According to **Asialink**, the **Balikatan 2026** military exercise mobilized seventeen thousand troops from seven nations, including Japan's first combat deployment since 1945. It is the most visible regional response to this whole set of prolonged maritime **tensions**.

This mobilization, on a scale rarely reached in the **region**, shows just how far the **Scarborough** question and the surrounding maritime **tensions** have outgrown a strictly bilateral Sino-Philippine framing.

### What this scale reveals about regional risk perception

This unprecedented scale reveals a **shared perception** of risk among regional partners, who chose to commit considerable military resources rather than let this maritime **dossier** resolve itself, or fester, without an organized collective response. *No one mobilizes seventeen thousand troops for a **problem** they consider minor; the scale of the response quietly measures the scale of the perceived risk.*

This collective response, rather than a series of isolated bilateral reactions, marks a significant step in how the **region** now approaches this kind of prolonged maritime dispute.

## Note 5 — What the fishermen say, and do not say

### Testimonies that repeat, without ever wavering

The **testimonies** gathered by **Reuters** from Philippine **fishermen** do not vary much from one year to the next: they describe continuous exclusion from traditional fishing **grounds**, with no notable improvement despite the favorable 2016 arbitral **ruling**.

Far from growing tiresome, this repetition is itself a form of **proof through consistency**: when a testimony repeats without variation across a full **decade**, it gains credibility rather than losing it, contrary to what one might instinctively assume.

### What these testimonies do not say, because no one has asked

These **testimonies**, however, say little about the **solutions considered** by the **fishermen** themselves, or about any steps they may have taken with their own **government** to enforce the arbitral **ruling** that nonetheless favors them in law. *A testimony answers the questions it is asked; what it leaves out sometimes reveals the questions no one has yet thought to ask.*

This documentary gap, rather than a flaw in the reporting, points to an avenue for future field reporting that would go beyond simple observation to explore the concrete steps and expectations of the **communities** involved.

## Note 6 — The 2016 ruling, a judgment never enforced

### A legal victory that never left the page

The 2016 arbitral **ruling** remains, on paper, a complete **legal victory** for the **Philippines**. But ten years later, according to **Reuters**, that victory has produced no documented change in the real **access** of Philippine **fishermen** to the disputed Scarborough **grounds**.

This gap between law and fact is one of the harshest lessons of this **dossier**: a **decision under international law**, even a sound and favorable one, does not enforce itself automatically on the ground.

### What this gap teaches about the limits of international maritime law

This gap teaches a broader lesson about the **structural limits** of international maritime **law**: without a binding enforcement mechanism, a favorable arbitral **ruling** remains a moral and **legal** statement, not an operational guarantee on the water. *Law can say who is right; on its own, it cannot make a ship that refuses to leave, leave.*

This hard but necessary lesson warns against ever confusing a **courtroom victory** with a victory on the ground, a **distinction** this **dossier** illustrates with a clarity rarely matched elsewhere.

## Note 7 — What most reporting rarely names directly

### The word often missing from general coverage

Few reports name directly what this **dossier** represents: a **gradual erosion** of the effectiveness of international maritime **law** in the face of a continuous physical **presence** that carries no **legal** ambiguity whatsoever in its daily execution.

This note chooses to name that erosion without flinching, rather than dissolving it into a neutral **diplomatic** language that, through excessive **caution**, would eventually stop saying anything about the reality experienced by the **fishermen** involved.

### Why naming things remains a useful act, even a modest one

Naming things with precision remains a useful act, even a modest one, in a **dossier** where diplomatic caution largely dominates general media coverage, leaving little room for a direct description of what is actually happening on the water. *Naming a problem solves nothing, but it at least stops us from pretending it does not exist.*

This descriptive clarity, without excess or sensationalism, is the modest but real ambition of this field note on a maritime **dossier** too often reduced to flat, colorless statements.

## Note 8 — The silence of the outside major powers

### A region managing this alone, for now

This **dossier** remains, for now, managed mainly by **regional actors** themselves, with no directly documented intervention from outside major powers beyond participation in collective military exercises such as **Balikatan** 2026.

This regional management, rather than a full internationalization of the **dossier**, shapes what kind of responses are possible: **regional coalitions**, rather than direct outside interventions, based on the evidence available so far.

### What this silence might mean, without certainty

This relative silence from outside major powers could mean several different things, none confirmed with certainty by the available sources: strategic caution, priorities elsewhere, or simply waiting for a more significant development before any **direct involvement**. *In **diplomacy**, silence never means just one thing; one must resist the temptation to assign it a certain intention.*

This uncertainty, acknowledged rather than hidden, reflects the honesty required of this kind of observational note, which never claims to know more than what the **sources** actually allow us to establish.

## Note 9 — What Balikatan and the diplomatic ban have in common

### Two different responses to the same underlying tension

The **Balikatan** 2026 exercise and the diplomatic ban targeting Minister Teodoro have, according to the available sources, no established direct causal link between them. But both respond, each in its own way, to the same **underlying tension** running through the current Sino-Philippine relationship.

This underlying tension, documented by **Reuters**, Al Jazeera, and **Asialink** through three distinct angles, paints the portrait of a bilateral relationship under **constant pressure**, rather than a series of isolated incidents with no connection to each other.

### What this convergence, without proven causation, reveals anyway

This convergence of developments, despite the absence of any proven direct causal link, still reveals a shared **regional atmosphere**: one in which diplomatic firmness, continuous maritime presence, and collective military mobilization are all unfolding at once. *Three separate stories, told by three different sources, can still sketch together the climate of a single diplomatic season.*

This bird's-eye reading, cautious about causal links but attentive to the general atmosphere, is one of the modest but real contributions this note offers to understanding the regional **dossier**.

## Note 10 — What ten years change, and what they do not

### What has changed over a decade

Over a decade, several things have changed in this **dossier**: the scale of regional military exercises, the intensity of diplomatic exchanges, and the international media visibility given to **maritime tensions** that were once far more discreet.

These changes, real as they are, show a region taking this **dossier** increasingly seriously, as its duration stretches on and **quick solutions** keep failing to materialize despite documented diplomatic efforts.

### What has not changed, despite everything else

What has not changed, on the other hand, is the concrete reality described by Philippine fishermen themselves: access to traditional fishing grounds remains just as restricted today as it was before the 2016 arbitral decision, according to their own **testimonies** gathered by **Reuters**. *Everything around a problem can change without the problem itself moving an inch; that may be the hardest note in this piece.*

This persistence of the central problem, despite a decade of peripheral changes, may be the clearest measure of what is most **frustrating** about this **dossier** for the communities directly affected by this prolonged situation.

## Note 11 — A methodological lesson for reading this kind of dossier

### Never confuse coverage with resolution

A methodological lesson emerges from these notes: abundant **media coverage** of a **dossier** never means that dossier is moving toward resolution. A problem can be documented with great regularity without ever being resolved.

This distinction, simple but often forgotten, applies directly to the **Scarborough** **dossier**: ten years of journalistic coverage have not produced ten years of concrete progress for the Philippine **fishermen** involved.

### What this lesson suggests for future coverage

This lesson suggests, for future coverage of this **dossier**, a particular kind of vigilance: continuing to document the **situation on the ground** rather than settling for diplomatic or military announcements which, on their own, guarantee no concrete change. *Documenting a problem relentlessly remains useful, even when resolution keeps being delayed; sometimes it is all journalism can honestly offer.*

This ongoing vigilance, rather than a one-off check-in, is the methodological commitment this kind of note tries to embody in the face of a **dossier** as **durable** as Scarborough's.

## Note 12 — Why these notes end without a grand conclusion

### The honesty of not forcing a closure that does not exist

These notes end without a grand conclusion, because no definitive conclusion yet exists in the available sources: the **Scarborough** **dossier** remains open, unresolved, and nothing suggests a near resolution based on the material consulted for this piece.

This lack of closure is not a flaw of this note but an honest reflection of the **documented reality**: some files simply stay open, year after year, without any actor managing to close them.

### What this note hopes to have offered anyway

This note nonetheless hopes to have offered something: a careful, sourced, and honest reading of a **dossier** that deserves better than quick **summaries**, and one that will likely keep producing, in the months ahead, new testimonies just as consistent as the ones already gathered. *Sometimes the most honest contribution a text can offer is not an answer, but a patient observation that refuses to simplify what remains, in truth, complicated.*

This patience, applied to reading as much as to writing, may be the only attitude truly suited to a **dossier** whose **duration** keeps outpacing, year after year, every attempt at a quick resolution.

## Note 13 — What an outside observer should remember above all

### Remember the duration before the details

For an outside observer encountering this **dossier** for the first time, the first thing to remember is not a technical or legal detail, but the **duration** itself: ten years of a dispute documented with rare consistency by the same reliable news sources.

This duration, more than any other single element, correctly sizes up the scale of the problem: this is not a recent incident, but a **settled situation** that has persisted for nearly a full decade.

### Remember also that this dossier will likely keep making news

It should also be remembered that this **dossier** will likely keep making news in the months and years ahead, as new **military exercises**, new diplomatic statements, and new fishermen's testimonies continue to be added to an already long timeline. *Some files never close abruptly; they simply keep adding pages to a chapter that never really shuts.*

This likely continuation, rather than a near resolution, should guide the expectations of any reader who wants to follow this **dossier** with realism rather than an **optimism** that, for now, finds no support in the documented facts.

## Conclusion

These field notes on **Scarborough** conclude nothing definitive, because the dossier itself concludes nothing: ten years after the 2016 arbitral ruling, Philippine fishermen still tell the same story of exclusion, according to **Reuters**, while **China** maintains a documented continuous presence in the disputed zone.

What these notes hold onto above all is the value of **documentary consistency** in the face of a **dossier** that refuses to resolve itself: continuing to gather the same testimonies, year after year, remains an act of rigor, even when it produces no resolution. *Some files never end cleanly; the least we can do is keep watching them with the same attention we gave on the first day.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Reuters — Testimonies of Philippine fishermen — July 10, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/decade-after-historic-ruling-philippine-fishermen-say-driven-away-disputed-shoal-2026-07-10/)

### Secondary sources

- [Al Jazeera — Ban on the Philippine minister — June 11, 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/11/china-bars-philippines-defence-chief-as-south-china-sea-spat-sails-onwards)

- [Asialink — Regional context, Balikatan 2026](https://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/diplomacy/insights/between-talks-and-tensions-why-south-china-sea-wont-stabilise-2026/)

- [Straits Times — Regional diplomatic context — June 15, 2026](https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/xi-swaps-fighter-jets-for-diplomatic-hardball-to-squeeze-taiwan)

- [New York Times — Regional maritime context — July 5, 2026](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/05/world/asia/china-taiwan-east-coast-guard-patrols.html)

- [Reuters — Chinese budget context — March 10, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-lifts-military-budget-modernize-weapons-defence-technology-2026-03-10/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/note-field-notes-on-scarborough