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Malacañang and Congress were asked to adopt a common
position to quickly pass a new law delineating the
archipelagic baselines of the Philippines to protect its
territorial right over the disputed Kalayaan Group of
Islands, also known as the
Spratly
Islands.
Senate
Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. pointed out that
the bill to draw up the country’s archipelagic map
should be given top priority by the Senate to complement
a similar undertaking by the House of Representatives
and to beat the May 2009 deadline set by the United
Nations.
“Definitely, it is incumbent upon us to protect and
assert our territorial rights over the seas around us,
and even to the extent of 200 nautical miles from the
edge of our seas as our exclusive economic zone [EEZ],”
Pimentel said.
In a
statement over the weekend, he noted that the published
statement of Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC)
president Antonio Cailao admitting that the entire
142,886-square-kilometer area covered by the 2005
Philippine-China-Vietnam agreement for a joint marine
seismic undertaking in the South China Sea “is all
within Philippine territory.” The agreement was signed
by the national oil companies of the three countries.
He said
this makes it more imperative for the Philippines to
define its archipelagic baselines “to assert our
sovereign control over the Spratly Islands.”
“If what
he [Cailao] said is true, all the more we should push
for a definition of our territory whatever the opinion
of other countries may be,” he added.
Pimentel
also acknowledged the position of Lakas Rep. Antonio
Cuenco of Cebu, chairman of the House Committee on
Foreign Relations, that the government should address
this crucial issue like a ship moving “full steam ahead
and damn the torpedoes!”
Pimentel
proposed that Congress and Malacañang should resolve
their differences over the configuration of the
Philippines’ archipelagic map without, in any way,
creating the impression that the country’s legal and
historic claim to the Kalayaan Islands may be
compromised or weakened.
But
Pimentel, at the same time, cautioned that “we should
not rile our friends China and Vietnam,” with which the
Philippines is enjoying friendly and mutually beneficial
relations.
“It
would be ridiculous for the Philippines not to include
the Kalayaan Islands within its archipelagic baselines
because this is being made precisely in pursuit of its
rights as an archipelagic state under the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea [Unclos],” he said,
adding that the Kalayaan Islands have been officially
annexed as part of Philippine territory and they have
been under actual and effective control of the
Philippines since 1978.
Pimentel
is inclined to agree with the advice given by a group of
law professors from the University of the
Philippines
for Congress to pass the law drawing up the country’s
archipelagic map regardless of the reservations
expressed by China or any other claimant-state. “At any
rate, all disputes or overlapping claims will be subject
to final resolution by the United Nations in accordance
with Unclos.”
Legislators earlier voiced their disappointment that the
House failed to pass its version of the bill delineating
the archipelagic baselines to include the Kalayaan
Islands and Scarborough Shoal before the Lenten break
owing to the last-minute intervention of Malacañang,
which asked to postpone passage of the bill and its
recommitment to the Committee on Foreign Affairs to
incorporate amendments proposed by the Commission on
Maritime and Ocean Affairs under the Office of the
President.
Pimentel
pointed out that the Palace move came after Beijing sent
a note to Manila stating that the passage of the bill
putting “the Scarborough Shoal and some other Nansha [Spratly]
reefs and islands inside the baseline of the Philippines
will not be conducive to stability … [and will] also
disturb China-Philippine cooperation in the area.”
Pimentel
protested the Arroyo administration’s lack of
transparency in pursuing the agreement on the marine
seismic study in the South China Sea, originally signed
by the Philippines and China in 2004.
He was
with the presidential party to represent the opposition
when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo traveled to
Beijing in 2004 to witness the signing of the agreement.
But he and other legislators were kept out of the
signing ceremonies.
“We were
only told that this was one of the bilateral agreements
signed. But we never saw a copy of the agreement,”
Pimentel complained.
Pimentel
said the original purpose of the agreement on the joint
seismic undertaking may be good, especially in terms of
preventing a possible outbreak of hostilities among the
claimant-countries over the Spratly islands.
However,
he said he was deeply alarmed when it later on turned
out that the seismic study will cover large areas
covered by Philippine territory, and even as far as the
seas near Palawan which are being unclaimed by the other
parties in the South China Sea territorial dispute. |
