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MILITANT
fishermen on Tuesday assailed agriculture officials led
by Secretary Arthur Yap and Director Malcolm Sarmiento
of the the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR)
for allegedly pressuring lawmakers to drop the country’s
claim over the Spratlys in the pending baselines bill.
“The
common position taken by the agriculture secretary and
the Bureau of Fisheries director calling Congress to
pass the baselines bill without the Kalayaan Group of
Islands in the country’s territorial waters is in
consonance with the position aggressively pushed by
China, and not reflective of the people’s collective and
national interest,” Fernando Hicap, chairman of the
Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya)
said in a statement.
Hicap
said that instead of legitimizing and strengthening the
country’s legitimate political and territorial claims on
the Spratly Islands, “the two officials are further
weakening our position, which has been legitimized by
past and present historical accounts and national
practices.”
The
country has nine months left to pass a law that would
strengthen the Philippines’ claim to extensive
archipelagic baselines before a May 2009 deadline set by
the United Nations (UN) under the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea, or Unclos.
Hicap
said failure on the part of Congress to enact a
baselines bill will push the country to lose substantial
volumes in mineral, petroleum and natural gas reserves,
as well as marine fishery resources. He said the country
must first define its archipelagic baselines prior to
making claims to a 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)
and another 150-mile Extended Continental Shelf (ECS),
where much of the valuable resources are found.
Hicap
added that while the country’s claims over the Spratly
Islands are not included in the baselines bill, it does
not mean the government is abandoning its claims to the
Spratlys or other islands, as claimed by some groups.
“It
seems to us that [agriculture] officials headed by
Secretary Yap and Director Sarmiento are performing
their roles to the hilt as de facto Filipino spokesmen
of the Beijing government in connection with the
controversy involving the country’s decades-old claim to
Spratly Islands,” Hicap stressed.
He
asserted that the noninclusion of Spratlys in the
baselines bill and the alleged mysterious visit of
President Arroyo to China have something to do with the
“cannibalization” of the pending baselines bill in
Congress that removed the country’s legitimate claims
over the Spratlys to pave the way for the revival of the
Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking.
The
group said one of the main purposes of Arroyo’s visit to
Beijing is to inform top officials of the Chinese
government that her government has decided to drop the
country’s claim to Kalayaan Group of Islands, as
prescribed in the defanged baselines bill.
“With
the removal of Spratlys in the baselines bill, it is now
all systems go for China to conduct the biggest oil
hunt,” Hicap said. |
