(Please read related story: Iranun descendants in the Philippines declare patrimony claim over the Spratlys Islands and the Scarborough Shoals)

• Since the 3rd century the Austronesian Iranūn from Tebouk in Mindanao had been using the route Tebouk (Southwest Mindanao) ↔ Palawan ↔ Sulawan(Spratlys) ↔ Pulo Condor (now Con Son) ↔ Pandurangan (PhanRang) to reach mainland Southeast Asia.
• Over the centuries the Iranūn exclusively uses this route to trade, raid and reach various points of mainland Southeast Asia; the normal trade route was the western coast-hugging route round Champa and Cambodia well away and giving a wide berth of the Spratly Islands;
• China’s commercial shipping started late than many other countries. In the 7th century China shipping were limited to small craft plying along its coast, manned by Sinicized Yueh. The Chinese, because of her lack of a naval power, was not taking active role in the Asian trade, contenting itself to deal at its own domestic ports;
• Most of the shipping were manned by Austronesian-speakers. Not until the 12th century did Chinese take a significant role themselves in the trade, and only in the 16th century did they become dominant in it at the expense of the island South East Asians;
• In the centuries of intermittent wars between among Đại Việt (North Vietnam) and the Champa kingdoms, the Iranūn used their Spratlys (Sulawan) route to ferry refugees and immigrants from Champa (now Vietnam) and eventually distribute them to various regions of island Southeast Asia well until the 18th century;
• The 1947 Nine Dashed Line of the Chinese, by excluding Pulo Condor (Con Son Island) in it, makes a naive disconnect of the network of the Iranūn, and shows ignorance of the happenstances surrounding the Champa Sea (later renamed South China Sea by the Portuguese) over the centuries;
• The descendants of the princess Bai sa Condor are the true heirs of the Spratlys through their Iranun ancestors’ constant usage of the Spratlys over the centuries;
• The Zeng He expeditions (1405-1433) and the Mongol Yuan expedition (1293) never touched on Spratlys, and both used the traditional roundabout coast-hugging route of the west trade route;
• The old capital of Cebu Sanghapala is a toponym of Siṅhapura (Tra Kieu) of Vijaya. It is not true that the Bisaya took their name from the Sri Vijaya Empire of Sumatra but from central Vijaya in Champa. Their ancestors were the immigrant refugees who took the Spratlys route courtesy of Iranūn steerage; Siṅhapura in Trà Kiệu citadel in Vijaya (Vijayapura) is a testament to the exodus that had ensued. This is also how we got the name Bisaya in memory of the Cham capital Vijaya (the same with Visayans who landed in north Borneo);
• Seasonal fishing camps and intermittent commercial guano mining do not qualify as occupation, at least not by a state. Neither does putting late markers on protruding rocks which are just semaphore symbolism and has no bearing to actual usage as did the Iranūn to count for ownership;
• Today we have hundreds of thousands of descendants of the Bai sa Tebouk and Anta sa Tebouk answering to the claims on Sulawan (Spratlys) and Panakot (Scarborough Shoal) as their patrimony from their Iranūn ancestors;

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