According to NHCP, none of the Philippines’ neighbors claim sovereignty over Philippine territory over “baseless and inaccessible historical fiction”. NHCP handout photo 

MANILA — Posts calling Palawan as "Zheng He Island" on Chinese social media apps are inaccurate, as the Chinese explorer it was allegedly named after travelled to seas west of China and not towards the Philippines, a historian said on Saturday.

A post on social media platforms Weibo and Rednote claimed that the Chinese explorer traveled to Palawan between the 1300s and the 1400s.

"Sabi ng mga accounts ni Zheng He na siya ay nakapunta sa Western Seas, hindi sa Eastern Seas. Hindi sa kung nasaan yung Pilipinas," said public historian and professor Xiao Chua.

"Yung Palawan, some parts of it was even part of the Sultanate of Sulu pero hindi siya naging ever part ng China. That is false," he told ABS-CBN News.

Zheng He — an admiral and a diplomat — received an order from a Ming dynasty emperor to embark on a "series of missions to the Western Oceans," according to the Britannica, the world's oldest encyclopedia.

Records showed that Zheng He first sailed from China in 1405 and  travelled to Southern Vietnam and Thailand before proceeding to the Indian Ocean.

In his second voyage, Zheng He again traveled to Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka), while his third trip led him to the seaports of India and the Persian Gulf.

Zheng He's fourth and fifth travels explored the Persian Gulf and ports along the East African coast, while hist last voyage in 1431 brought him to Siam (now Thailand) and Malacca, according to a journal from the archives of the Association for Asian Studies, a non-political, non-profit professional group of scholars.

"I think from the 11th century, all the maps of China — whether official or unofficial — ang southernmost part of the territory is yung Hainan Island so paano nila nasakop yung Palawan?" Chua said.

"They have been doing that even before the Chinese Communist Party had taken over. Panahon pa ni Chiang Kai Shek sa China, I think 1947, they started itong ganitong claim na kineclaim na nila yung mga seas near Palawan," he explained.

"This distortion of history is already deeply embedded in the minds of the Chinese kasi yan ang tinuturo sa kanila ever since from the 1940s so ang hirap niya [baguhin] para sa kanila," he said.

The National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) earlier disputed the claim on Chinese social media platforms, emphasizing that "Palawan was populated by communities of similar cultural affinity with the rest of our archipelago."

READ: Zheng He Island? NHCP disputes Chinese claims over Palawan

Citing the accounts of Venetian explorer Antonio Pigafetta, the NHCP said that it was European explorers who "made a blood compact with the chief of the community" in a town now known as Brooke's Point, Palawan.

"Historical maps from various European cartographers from the 1500s to the 1800s "recognized the inclusion of Palawan Island in the Philippine archipelago as administered by the Sultanate of Sulu and the Spanish Captain-Generalcy of the Philippines," the NHCP said, adding that there were no Chinese communities in Palawan in these historical records.

"The historical fact clearly and convincingly shows that the Philippines and its predecessor state actors have always exercised sovereignty over our archipelago and over Palawan in particular. No other state contests this fact," it said.

"The NHCP stands by the policy of the rest of the Philippine Government that not one inch of Filipino sovereign territory is for sale, nor can any be claimed by states that purport to be our friends yet continue to undermine regional stability through the reprehensible use of questionable historical data."

Malacañang has yet to issue a statement on the issue.

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