PH diplomats, Beijing push for talks on South China Sea dispute

Philippine diplomats and Beijing all agree that Beijing and Manila should go back to the negotiating table and resolve the long-running South China Sea territorial dispute peacefully.

“You can’t resolve an issue without talking to each other,” former

Philippine ambassador to the United Nations Lauro Baja told reporters in an interview at the Department of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Pasay City shortly after the private memorial tribute in honor of the late Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon Tuesday afternoon. Baja helped negotiate the 2002 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC).

Former Philippine ambassador to Belgium, Sweden, and France, and Special Envoy of the Philippines to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights Rosario Manalo agree with his colleague that the best thing for both countries is to “sit down and talk.”

According to Ambassador Manalo, the first woman to pass the Philippine Foreign Service Officers’ Examinations (FSO) in 1959, although China has already “eaten up portions of the territory” everything can still be resolved through bilateral negotiation.

“We should start talking about how to share the fruits of the tree through exploration,” she told reporters.

Ambassador Baja said dialogue should still be pursued regardless of the case filed by the Philippines before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague.

“I have yet to hear an excuse or justification that going bilateral will prejudice our case in the panel,” he noted. “These judges are statesmen; they are learned. They know how to distinguish rhetoric, what is legal or what is reality.”

Baja pointed out that the Philippine government relied too much on the legal angle.

“We put all our eggs on the tribunal,” he said. “You cannot solve a question of territorial integrity or maritime entitlement solely on legal ground.”

“We cannot rest and call it an achievement that we won in the panel without having it leveraged in some other fora,” he explained.

He expressed his belief that it will not be a total victory for the Philippines in The Hague nor a total loss for China.

“In the exercise of the court’s judicial statesmanship, I think they will come to a decision where there will be opportunities for China and the Philippines to engage in bilateral talks,” said Baja.

On Tuesday, China once again urged the Philippines to “immediately cease its wrongful conduct of pushing forward the arbitral proceedings and return to the right path of settling the relevant disputes in the South China Sea through bilateral negotiation with China.”

According to the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry, on issues concerning territory and maritime delimitation, “China does not accept any means of dispute settlement imposed on it; nor does China accept any recourse to third party settlement.”

“The door of China-Philippines bilateral negotiation is always open,” it emphasized. “China will remain committed to settling through negotiation the relevant disputes with the Philippines in the South China Sea on the basis of respecting historical facts and in accordance with international law.”