DFA fires 2 more protests vs Chinese vessels at WPS reef
Derr said the Philippines has 27 uninhabited features within its EEZ that are vulnerable to foreign occupation.
She listed the key features as: Hopps Reef, Sabina Shoal, Southern Banks, Hardy Reef, Boxall Reef, Iriquois Reef, Hopkins Reef, Third Thomas Shoal, Jackson Atoll, Livock Reef, Alicia Annie Reef, Empire Reef, Jones Reef, Higgens Reef, Holiday Reef and Hallet Reef.
Other uninhabited areas are: Pennsylvania South Reef, Southern Banks, Mckennan Reef, Edmund Reef, Loveless Reef, Director Reef, Half Moon Shoal, Bombay Shoal, Northeast Investigator Shoal, Royal Captain Shoal, and Seahorse Shoal.
Constructing structures in these areas, such as lighthouses, can be done inexpensively “without provoking war,” Derr said, noting that the Philippines has been very weak in protecting its territory compared to other claimants.
“If the Philippines occupies the unoccupied Spratlys features in its EEZ, with some research into prioritizing which to occupy and what the best level of occupation is, their EEZ will be protected,” she said.
The presence of Philippine-built structures in the area will also protect Filipino fishermen and defend their right to continue fishing within the country’s waters.
“If this weakness continues, we will surely see more features being occupied by foreign countries,” Derr warns.
Aside from the Philippines and China, the SCS is also claimed by four other countries: Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
The Philippines renamed the WPS as areas that fall under the Philippines’s EEZ in the South China Sea.
Alarm bells have been sounded by military experts and analysts during the last few years; they said the SCS could be a flashpoint that could trigger a bigger conflict, leading to a major war among competing states.
This could arise from miscommunication or accidental collision of ships or aircraft in the air and in the strategic waters, where a series of military exercises have been held by both China and the United States and its allies for the past few years.
The 2016 Arbitral ruling handed down by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, invalidated Chinese expansive claims in the SCS under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
The Asian giant, however, continues to ignore the ruling and the Unclos, which it has ratified.
Some $3.7 billion worth of goods sail through the 1.3-million-square-mile SCS every year, while oil and gas deposits are believed waiting to be exploited.
In March, the Task Force on WPS reported the presence of more than 200 Chinese vessels in Julian Felipe Reef, which the Chinese named Niu’e Jiao.
Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines, Huang Xilian claims their vessels were simply taking refuge from rough seas, in the calm surface of the boomerang-shaped lagoon, a claim that Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and the DFA have rejected.
Despite multiple protests from the Philippine government and demand for their immediate withdrawal, the vessels have remained, albeit scattered among the reefs and atolls of the WPS.