Bashi Channel — where we go to war!

NOT much is known to the Filipino public about the Bashi Channel in the Batanes and the Babuyan islands off the northern coast of Cagayan province. But this is where we go to war.

Bashi's strategic importance is that this narrow passage is a global trade route, rivaling the Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia, and the Formosa/Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and the Chinese province of Fujian. Underneath pass submarine communications cables connecting the US West Coast, Japan and South Asia, carrying approximately 97 percent of data and telephone traffic.