Manila Bulletin

Car­pio to Duterte, AFP: De­fend Panatag Shoal

- By REY G. PANALIGAN Politics · Asian Politics · Scarborough F.C. · China · China's State Council · South Carolina · United Nations · Permanent Court of Arbitration · Philippines · Philippine Navy · United States of America · Japan · Philippine Sea

Supreme Court Se­nior Jus­tice An­to­nio T. Car­pio said yes­ter­day that the Armed Forces headed by Pres­i­dent Duterte as com­man­der-in-chief are con­sti­tu­tion­ally man­dated to de­fend Scar­bor­ough or Panatag Shoal

as part of Philip­pine ter­ri­tory.

In a state­ment, Car­pio re­minded the Pres­i­dent “to avoid any act, state­ment or dec­la­ra­tion that ex­pressly or im­pliedly waives Philip­pine sovereignt­y to any Philip­pine ter­ri­tory in the West Philip­pine Sea.”

His state­ment was is­sued af­ter the Pres­i­dent was quoted as say­ing that he (the Pres­i­dent) can­not stop China from im­ple­ment­ing its plan to build struc­tures on the dis­puted Panatag Shoal for now.

The SC mag­is­trate was part of the Philip­pine del­e­ga­tion that ar­gued be­fore the United Na­tions Per­ma­nent Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion (PCA) in 2015 and has been tapped by Pres­i­dent Duterte as con­sul­tant in the ter­ri­to­rial is­sues with China.

“Since the Philip­pines is no match to China mil­i­tar­ily,” Car­pio said the Pres­i­dent can ful­fill his con­sti­tu­tional duty “by do­ing any, some or all” of the fol­low­ing: 1. “File a strong for­mal protest against the Chi­nese build­ing ac­tiv­ity. This is the least the Pres­i­dent should do. This is what the Viet­namese did re­cently when China sent cruise tours to the dis­puted Paracels.

2. “Send the Philip­pine Navy to pa­trol Scar­bor­ough Shoal. If the Chi­nese at­tack Philip­pine Navy ves­sels, then in­voke the Philip­pines-United States Mu­tual De­fense Treaty which cov­ers any armed at­tack on Philip­pine Navy ves­sels pa­trolling in the South China Sea.

3. “Ask the United States to de­clare that Scar­bor­ough Shoal is part of Philip­pine ter­ri­tory for pur­poses of the Phil-US Mu­tual De­fense Treaty since the Shoal has been part of Philip­pine ter­ri­tory even dur­ing the Amer­i­can colo­nial pe­riod. The US has de­clared the Senkakus as part of Ja­panese ter­ri­tory for pur­poses of the US-Ja­pan Mu­tual De­fense Treaty.

4. “Ac­cept the stand­ing US of­fer to hold joint naval pa­trols in the South China Sea, which in­cludes Scar­bor­ough Shoal. This will demon­strate joint Philip­pine and US de­ter­mi­na­tion to pre­vent China from build­ing on Scar­bor­ough Shoal.

5. “Avoid any act, state­ment or dec­la­ra­tion that ex­pressly or im­pliedly waives Philip­pine sovereignt­y to any Philip­pine ter­ri­tory in the West Philip­pine Sea. This will pre­serve for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of Filipinos their na­tional pat­ri­mony in the West Philip­pine Sea.” Re­ports showed that China seized Scar­bor­ough Shoal in 2012 af­ter a stand­off be­tween Chi­nese and Filipino ves­sels. Since then, China has been deny­ing Filipino fish­er­men ac­cess to the Shoal’s rich fish­ing area.

No ba­sis

The UN’s Per­ma­nent Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion (PCA) in 2015 up­held the ma­jor sub­mis­sions of the Philip­pines, in­clud­ing the dec­la­ra­tion of China’s nine-dash line as con­trary to United Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS) and has no ba­sis in law.

The PCA also af­firmed Philip­pines’ stance that China’s move to shoo away Filipino fish­er­men at the dis­puted Scar­bor­ough Shoal was also un­law­ful.

It de­clared that the Mis­chief Reef, Sec­ond Thomas Shoal and Reed Bank as “part of the ex­clu­sive eco­nomic zone and con­ti­nen­tal shelf of the Philip­pines, and are not over­lapped by any pos­si­ble en­ti­tle­ment of China.”

At the same time, the PCA held that China vi­o­lated its obli­ga­tions un­der UNCLOS to pro­tect and pre­serve mar­itime en­vi­ron­ment when it built ar­ti­fi­cial is­lands in Mis­chief Reef with­out nec­es­sary per­mis­sion from the Philip­pines.

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