SENATORS are divided on giving legislative backing to Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio’s initiative prodding President Duterte to protest China’s impending construction projects in Panatag Shoal on the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
Senate Majority Leader Vicente C. Sotto III saw no necessity for it even as Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon said he was supporting Carpio in seeking Palace legal action to block planned Chinese constructions in the shoal that is within the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone.
“No need,” Sotto told the BusinessMirror on Tuesday, citing reports reaching his office indicating that China is not likely to go ahead with the plan.
Drilon, for his part, replied “yes” when asked if senators would join Carpio in urging Duterte to take preemptive legal options before China starts putting up structures on WPS sites claimed by the Philippines.
Sen. Sherwin T. Gatchalian, at the same time, suggested the Philippine government could lodge a “strong protest” against China before the United Nations. “The best option for our country and the government is to send a strong protest to the UN in relation to the clear violation of China to the arbitral ruling and our sovereignty,” Gatchalian said.
This developed as Party-list Rep. Francisco A. Acedillo of Magdalo, in a separate interview with the BusinessMirror earlier, disclosed that China was “actually setting up island fortifications” and simultaneously “developing anti-access-area denial, or A2AD weapons” as part of its preemptive strategy, apparently meant to deter other claimants on the disputed land features on the WPS.