THE Philippines should now muster the support of the international community in changing the mind-set of the Chinese people over their “ownership” of the South China Sea before their government would comply with the recent arbitration ruling in the Philippines’s favor, the architect of the Manila’s arbitration case said.
Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio said Beijing is not expected to comply in the generations to come with the ruling of the United Nations’s Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), which invalidated China’s nine-dash line as its basis for claiming sovereignty over the South China Sea.
He said the ruling is only the first step toward a thousand-mile journey in this “intergenerational struggle,” which the Philippines must wage to enforce its economic rights over a portion of the South China Sea that Manila calls the West Philippine Sea.
“All of the Chinese officials, generals, diplomats and members of the politburo—they all grew up being taught that they own the South China Sea,” Carpio said in an exclusive event covered by the BusinessMirror.
“How do you change that mind-set? We intended to do that first by securing the ruling. With this ruling, we will ask the entire world community to help us explain to the Chinese people that the nine-dash line has no basis in history and international law,” Carpio added.
Carpio recounted how the legal strategy of gaining back Philippine territory encroached upon by China was conceived.
He said in 1995 the Chinese navy physically took over Mischief Reef, and the Philippines could do nothing about it since it did not have the military strength to resist, and China had not yet ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
But with China’s ratification of the Unclos in 1996, the Philippines had a legal remedy to take back Mischief Reef and the rest of the South China Sea. And so, the legal strategy and the research to back up that strategy was conceived and an arbitration case was prepared. But no Philippine president gave the go-signal for the filing of the arbitration case until former President Benigno S. Aquino III allowed it to be filed with the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Carpio said with the ruling on the arbitration case, the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) had increased to 381,000 square kilometers, or more than the total land area of the Philippine archipelago.
“With the ruling, we have an EEZ of 381,000 square kilometers, which is bigger than the land area of the Philippines. The problem is how to preserve it. We should help each other to preserve it and not let this victory be squandered,” Carpio said. In a related development, Malacañang said the informal talks initiated by former President Fidel V. Ramos with his friends in the Chinese government focused on building trust between the two countries.
Ramos went to Hong Kong this week to meet Madam Fu Ying, chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, and Prof. Wu Shicun, president of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies.
“They discussed, in their private capacity, the way forward in the spirit of universal brotherhood and sisterhood for peace and cooperation between the two countries. Their informal discussions focused on the need to engage in discussions to build trust and confidence to reduce tensions to pave the way for overall cooperation for the benefit of both their peoples and the region,” Malacañang said in a statement.
Among the issues discussed are cooperation in encouraging marine preservation; avoiding tension and promoting fishing, cooperation; antidrug and antismuggling cooperation; anticrime and anticorruption cooperation; and improving tourism opportunities.
2 comments
We must teach our kids that the Spratleys and the entire West Philipine Sea is ours. Time to end our colonial mentality and time to start building patriotism as a nation – not just among Tagalog Imperialists
The ENTIRE sea ? NO. The Philippines is right to insist on the respect of its EEZ. But claiming the whole sea for the Philippines is as ludicrous as China’s claim. Countries need to follow strictly the EEZ regulations set forth by UNCLOS. The sections of the sea that are beyond nautical miles will belong to nobody and be considered as high seas, under UNCLOS international agreement. Simple. Easy. No other way. The Philippines will be greater in the eyes of the world by being a model of respect for the law. Pushing in a way similar to China will be counter-productive.