AT the heels of the country’s claim over the resource-rich undersea land Benham Rise, the government is submitting another territorial claim before the United Nations.

Speaking to ANC’s Strictly Politics, Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said the government is eyeing the West Palawan region, which is in the south of the disputed Spratly Islands.

Paje said other countries, like Indonesia and Vietnam, have made a claim on the area but the Philippines has prior right to the territory based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (Unclos).

Asked if the government would consider a joint exploration of the West Palawan area, the environment chief said: “It’s defined also in Unclos that when your 200 miles overlaps with the 200 miles of Indonesia, for example—it’s being done now in southern part of Philippines—the guidelines says we can co-manage it.”

“We have two options: co-manage the resource or we compute the overlap and divide it into two,” he added.