Place:Kalayaan, Palawan, Western Visayas, Philippines

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Kalayaan, officially the Municipality of Kalayaan, is a 6th class municipality in the South China Sea under the jurisdiction of the province of Palawan, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 193 people.

Part of the Spratly Islands, situated within the South China Sea, the Kalayaan municipality, which includes Thitu Island (locally known as Pag-asa, the administrative center of Kalayaan Island Group) is 280 nautical miles north-west of Puerto Princesa and south-west of Metro Manila. It consists of a single barangay located on Pag-asa Island, which also serves as the seat of the municipal government. It is the least populated municipality in the Philippines. Kalayaan's annual budget is 47 million pesos (about $1.1 million).

Kalayaan municipality has an airstrip, a naval port, a five-bed lying-in clinic, a police station, a coast guard station, a marine research station, and a small elementary school.^[1]

Formerly an exclusively military installation, Pag-asa Island was opened to civilian settlement in 2002.

Kalayaan has the highest poverty incidence and is one of the poorest municipalities in the Philippines.

History

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There are records of the island having been inhabited, at various times in history, by the Chinese and by people from Champa in present-day Vietnam, and during the Second World War by French Indochina and Imperial Japanese troops. However, there were no large settlements on these islands until 1956, when Filipino lawyer, businessman, adventurer and fishing magnate Tomás Cloma decided to "claim" a part of the Spratly Islands as his own, naming it the "Free Territory of Freedomland".

In 1946, Vice President Elpidio Quirino reiterated the "New Southern Islands", the forerunner name for Kalayaan, as part of the Philippines.

In 1947, Tomás Cloma "discovered" a group of several uninhabited and unoccupied islands/islets in the vastness of the Luzon Sea.^[2]

On May 11, 1956, together with forty men, Cloma took formal possession of the islands, lying some west of the southern end of Palawan and named them the "Free Territory of Freedomland". Four days later, Cloma issued and posted copies of his "Notice to the Whole World" on each of the islands as "a decisive manifestation of unwavering claim over the territory".

On May 31, 1956, Cloma declared the establishment of the Free Territory of Freedomland, ten days after sending his second representation to the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, informing the latter that the territory claimed was named "Freedomland".^[3]

On July 6, 1956, Cloma declared his claim to the whole world and the establishment of a separate government for the "Free Territory of Freedomland" with its capital on Flat Island (Patag Island). His declaration was met with violent and unfriendly reactions from several neighboring countries especially the Republic of China (ROC; on Taiwan since 1949), when it effectively garrisoned the nearby island of Itu Aba and intercepted Cloma's men and vessels found within its immediate waters on September 24, 1956.

In 1974, Cloma ceded his rights over the islands for one peso, after being imprisoned by Ferdinand Marcos.

Presidential Decree No. 1596

President Ferdinand E. Marcos created the Municipality of Kalayaan by signing Presidential Decree No. 1596 into law on June 11, 1978.^[2] This established what the document described as "a distinct and separate municipality of the Province of Palawan".

PD 1596 defined the boundaries of the municipality as follows:

From a point [on the Philippine Treaty Limits] at latitude 7º40' North and longitude 116º00' East of Greenwich, thence due West along the parallel of 7º40' N to its intersection with the meridian of longitude 112º10' E, thence due north along the meridian of 112º10' E to its intersection with the parallel of 9º00' N, thence north-eastward to the intersection of parallel of 12º00' N with the meridian of longitude 114º30' E, thence, due East along the parallel of 12º00' N to its intersection with the meridian of 118º00' E, thence, due South along the meridian of longitude 118º00' E to its intersection with the parallel of 10º00' N, thence Southwestwards to the point of beginning at 7º40' N, latitude and 116º00' E longitude.

i.e. 7º40'N 116º00'E; west to 7º40'N 112º10'E; north to 9º00'N 112º10'E; NE to 12º00'N 114º30'E; east to 12º00'N 118º00'E; south to 10º00'N 118º00'E; SW to 7º40'N 116º00'E.

Republic Act No. 9522

Republic Act No. 9522, which defined the archipelagic baselines of the Philippines, claimed sovereignty over the Kalayaan Island Group under Section 2, sub-paragraph A which described the territory as a "Regime of Islands"—a concept defined in the United Nation Convention on Law of the Sea for similar bodies of land.

Rival claims

In addition to the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia all claim the Spratly Archipelago either as a whole or in part. The Philippines occupies 10 reefs and islands. The People's Republic of China presently occupies seven reefs. The Republic of China (Taiwan)'s solitary island is the largest in the archipelago at approximately . Vietnam occupies 21 islets and reefs. Malaysia claims 7 reefs including Layang Layang which currently hosts a naval base and a diving resort. Interest in the archipelago was reportedly triggered by Cloma's declaration and subsequent assertion by the Philippines.

In March 1976, President Marcos issued the Letter of Instruction (LOI) No.1-76 organizing the AFP Western Command based in Palawan in response to the heightening conflict of interest in the region and to abate any untoward incident.

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