UPLB joins growing opposition to Chinese scholars’ Batanes claim

The department said researchers have a professional and ethical responsibility to pursue truth.

The University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) Department of Social Sciences has joined a growing number of Philippine institutions rejecting claims made by a group of Chinese scholars that Batanes belongs to China, calling the assertions historically irresponsible and unsupported by evidence.

In a statement, the department strongly criticized the conclusions reached during an academic symposium held at Jinan University on June 30, where some participants claimed that the Batanes Islands are part of the People’s Republic of China.

The UPLB department stressed that genuine historical research must be anchored on “empirical integrity, objective methodology, and adherence to historical evidence,” warning against the use of academic platforms to advance revisionist narratives that challenge the Philippines’ established territorial sovereignty.

It also addressed arguments pointing to the cultural and ancestral links between the Ivatan people of Batanes and the Yami people of Taiwan’s Orchid Island.

The department noted that while a group of Yami recently sailed across the Bashi Channel to Batanes to retrace the pre-colonial sea routes of their ancestors, such shared ancestry and cultural ties “do not constitute evidence of territorial sovereignty.”

According to the statement, the migration of Ivatans to Orchid Island around 300 years ago was a historical response to Spanish colonization, explaining the close linguistic and cultural relationship between the two indigenous communities without affecting modern territorial boundaries.

The UPLB department also echoed the recent position of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), quoting its statement that, “Knowledge can only be true if grounded on good faith. No amount of fabrication will erase the truths of our past.”

Calling on scholars and universities to uphold academic integrity, the department said researchers have a professional and ethical responsibility to pursue truth rather than promote unsupported or politically motivated historical claims that could undermine regional stability and genuine academic discourse.

It concluded by reaffirming that “the historical and geographical record leaves no room for ambiguity” and declared that “the Batanes Islands are, and will always remain, an integral and indivisible province of the Republic of the Philippines.”

The statement adds to the growing chorus of Philippine institutions pushing back against the controversial claims, following earlier rebuttals from the NHCP and other government officials, who have maintained that Philippine sovereignty over Batanes is settled, historically documented, and not subject to revisionist interpretations.

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