Duterte stops foreign exploration at PH Rise
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has ordered all marine explorations by foreign scientists at the Philippine Rise to stop, and called on the Philippine Navy hectare continental shelf east of Luzon, Malacañang said on Tuesday.
The President gave the order Monday night during a Cabinet meeting where “Benham Rise” as “Philippine Rise.”
Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said “the President ordered that henceforth only Filipinos will be al lay submarine cables and explore and exploit for national resources in the Philippine Rise.”
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol broke the news on Facebook, saying Duterte ordered a halt to all foreign activities in the area.
- sation of foreign research activities did not mean “a ban.”
He said foreign entities could still conduct research upon the approval of the National Security Adviser (NSA) Hermogenes Esperon, Jr.
we want Filipinos to do [research], that we are reserving it for Filipi at the Palace.
He said research done previously by China, United States, Japan, Korea and Germany were finished.
“All scientific research are deemed cancelled, any new application to be filed with the inter- agency technical working group will have to make a separate NSA,” Roque said.
“It is a revocation of all licenses and henceforth any foreign entity that wishes to conduct research can apply to the usual body and in addition there must be the personal approval of the NSA,” he added.
‘PH Rise is ours’
Duterte said at the start of the Cabinet meeting in Malacañang on Monday: “Let me be very clear about this: the Philippine Rise is
ours and any insinuation that it is open to everybody should end with this declaration.”
He ordered the Department of National Defense to deploy Navy vessels and the Philippine Air Force to check on the presence of foreign vessels.
The Department of Agriculture, which issues the Gratuitous Permits for Foreign Marine Explorations, through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, also dispatched its two new “multimission offshore vessels”— the
BRPLapulapu and BRPFrancisco Dagohoy.
The President’s statement came after a comment by a low-level diplomat from another country that the Philippine Rise did not belong to any particular state.
The Philippine Rise is a 25-million hectare continental shelf, which extends from the eastern shores of the island of Luzon to
The United Nations declared 13 million hectares as part of the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines and another 12 million hectares as part of the extended continental shelf.
Controversy arose after Chinese marine scientists disclosed that they were allowed by the Philippine government to conduct explorations and studies in the area.
Senators supportive
Senators Loren Legarda and Sherwin Gatchalian threw their support behind the directive of President Duterte to give priority to Filipino scientists and researchers in exploring and developing the natural resources in the Philippine Rise.
“We have to protect and preserve what is rightfully ours under the Unclos (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas) and our laws for our future generations,” said Legarda, chairman of the Senate foreign relations and
Gatchalian said: “The best part of the guidelines is that we will research studies. I support the new guidelines being made available to all countries but more importantly, whatever the result of that would come out from these researches, we will be the one to
Asked whether there must be legislation to strengthen the Philippines’ claim over the resources in a bill renaming the proposed Benham Rise Development Authority to Philippine Rise Development Authority to give a consistency to the renaming of that area.”
“The development authority will be a coordinating body, a policy-making body. We will also include regulatory powers so that only one entity will handle requests to explore the area. It will be he said.
Sen. Paolo Benigno Aquino 4th on Tuesday expressed hope that Duterte would strictly enforce the order.
“The President’s pronouncement is a welcome development. Now we must determine our policy and plans for Benham Rise,” said Aquino, chairman of the Senate Committee on Science and Technology.
‘Knee-jerk reaction’
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said data gathered by foreign researchers must be turned over to the Philippine government.
“If it is true that President Rodrigo Duterte stopped all scientific studies being conducted by foreigners in the Philippine Rise ( Benham Rise), then for security and developmental reasons, all data so far gathered must be confiscated by or turned over to the Philippine government to preclude their unauthorized use by foreigners,” Lagman said in a statement.
In a separate statement, Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate said the Philippine government should compel Chinese researchers Filipino counterparts who could use
“The Chinese and Philippine governments should also ensure that the data gathered would not be used by China to annex and militarize the resource rich area, Philippine Sea,” Zarate said.
Magdalo party- list Rep. Gary
from the administration after the overwhelming opposition of the public on allowing China to conduct marine scientific research ( MSR) in Benham Rise. Further, according to our sources, the Chinese vessels have already left two days ago,” - tain, said in a statement.
“It should be clear that we are not asking for total cessation of MSR by foreign entities in the area,” he added.
Unclos, all states have the right to conduct marine scientific rights and duties.
“As I have repeatedly forwarded before, what we need is a clear foreign policy direction with China which will guide the actions and decision-making of all concerned agencies of government. Second, I call for transparency from this administration regarding all its agreements and discussions with China. Finally, the long- term solution would be to strengthen our capacity to safeguard and monitor activities in our maritime domain,” Ale