Phl loses bid to void Chinese names for Benham Rise features

MANILA — The government's recent protest over China's naming of five features in Philippines-controlled underwater region Benham Rise came too late after years of inaction.

President Rodrigo Duterte is set to sail this week in hopes of making a statement that the Philippines "owns" the underwater ridge, now called Philippine Rise. The gesture, however, comes after an international body confirmed Chinese names for features in the Philippines' maritime backyard.

A NAMRIA map showing undersea region Benham Rise, which was recently renamed Philippine Rise.

In a letter to an overseas office of the Department of Foreign Affairs on March 6, 2018 seen by Philstar.com, the International Hydrographic Organization refused to reverse the approval of Chinese proposals to name undersea features Haidongqing Seamount, Jinghao Seamount, Tianbao Seamount, Jujiu Seamounts and Cuiqiao Hill.

The letter was in response to the Philippine delegation to UNESCO's request dated February 28, 2018 to nullify the names. The Philippines argued that it had jurisdiction over the features under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS.

The country also argued that China conducted an underwater survey in Benham Rise in 2004 that led to the naming of the features without the Philippines' consent.

Hans Werner Schenke, chair of the IHO's Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names or SCUFN, was quick to point out that UNCLOS has "legally no explicit effect with regard to the naming of undersea features in EEZs."

China's proposals followed all guidelines and rules of his office, Schenke explained. To grant the Philippines' request after the names have been adopted would give precedence to other possible revisions based on different interpretations.

Even if one country's naming of features in other countries' EEZs does not signify its rights over them, the Philippines lost the chance to make more relevant parts of its own maritime domain.

A FRUITLESS ATTEMPT AND AN OFF CHANCE

Maritime law expert Jay Batongbacal was the first to reveal China's plan to name five features in Benham earlier this year. He was technical advisor when the Philippines petitioned a UN-backed body in 2009 to grant an extension of its continental shelf in the Benham Rise region. The country was granted the award in 2012.

Batongbacal already warned that a complaint against Beijing's move would possibly be futile since the naming process had already concluded.