We in the House of Representatives are very apprehensive about developments in the West Philippine Sea. Recent news about incursions by naval and air craft belonging to the People’s Republic of China into Philippine territorial or maritime waters, including harassment of a research vessel commissioned by the Department of Energy doing exploration work off Reed Bank, are a grave cause for concern.
We are glad that the President and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs have responded firmly to these provocations.
Before the end of the last session of Congress, Congresswoman Kaka Bag-ao and I filed House Bill 1350, which proposed renaming the South China Sea the West Philippine Sea in order to disabuse people of any legal or subliminal notion that this body of water belongs to the People’s Republic of China. We are glad that the executive accepted our recommendation and renamed that body of water accordingly.
The UNCLOS (United NationsConvention on the Law of the Sea) established the principle that countries have ownership of seabed resources that lie within their continental shelf; for instance, that the mineral resources below Recto Bank belong to the Philippines. UNCLOS also provides coastal states with 200-nautical-mile-exclusive economic zones (EEZs) where they have the right to control fishing and related activities. Where EEZ’s overlap or there are disputed areas and multiple claimants are involved, multilateral negotiations are the only viable solution. This is a very reasonable position. Yet China refuses this solution, and instead tries to resolve matters unilaterally by making incursions into the 200-nautical-mile-EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zones) of other countries, or building structures in those areas, as in some parts of the Spratly Islands that are in the EEZ of the Philippines. For instance, Mischief Reef (Panganiban Reef), which China occupied over Philippine objections, is well within the 200 mile EEZ of the Philippines and over 1,000 miles from the Chinese coast.
Even more disturbing, China has formally staked a claim to the whole Sea, right down to a short distance away from the 24 nautical mile contiguous zones or 12-nautical mile-territorial limits of other countries in the area, completely disregarding the others’ EEZs and continental shelf rights and the fact that the waters and islands China is claiming are several hundred or even a thousand or more nautical miles beyond its territorial borders. Lately, Chinese markers and construction activity have been reported around Recto Bank, formerly Reed Bank, which indisputably belongs to the Palawan continental shelf and is said to be rich in oil.
It is with these concerns in mind that Akbayan has organized the Peace and Sovereignty Mission to the Kalayaan Islands on Wednesday, July 20, and invited other members of Congress to come along. The contingent will be made up of Reps. Emmeline Aglipay, Teddy Brawner Baguilat, Ben Evardone, Kaka Bag-ao, and myself. Specifically, the mission aims:
- One, to support the Philippine government’s rightful claims to the country’s 200-Mile-EconomicZone and the islands in the Spratly Archipelago that lie in that zone;
- Two, to underline the fact that Recto Bank, formerly Reed Bank, is indisputably Philippine territory owing to its being part of the Palawan continental shelf;
- Three, to underline the fact that no one country owns the West Philippine Sea, formerly known as the South China Sea;
- Four, to assert the stand of the Philippines and its ASEAN that disputes over maritime boundaries must be settled in a peaceful fashion and via multilateral diplomacy;
- Five, to provide moral support to our soldiers stationed in the Spratlys and the Filipino citizens living there;
- Six, to gather data to support legislative action to build up our civilian, naval, and marine defense capabilities in the area;
- Seven,to investigate possibilities for the expansion of sustainable economic activities that will complementour strategic needs in the area.
We have invited members of the media to come with us on this trip, and we thank Gen. Juancho Sabban, chief of the Western Command, for his support of the mission.In this connection, we would like to commend General Sabban for his forceful statements in defense of Philippine sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea.
We hope the mission will contribute to bringing to reality the Zone of Peace, Freedom, Friendship and Cooperation for the West Philippine Sea proposed by the President and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs.
Thank you.###
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