Rody asks FVR to start talks with China

Phl to push respect for sea ruling

Duterte said last night the interest of the Philippines and its allies would be considered as they strive to settle the territorial row through diplomacy.

“War, it’s not an option,” Duterte said during a testimonial dinner in his honor organized by the San Beda College Alumni Association at Club Filipino in San Juan.

“(We will go for) peaceful talks. I cannot give you the wherewithal now. I want to consult many people, including president Ramos… I would like to respectfully ask him to go to China and start the talks,” he added.

In an interview with reporters, Ramos said he would have to study Duterte’s request.

“This is not to show disrespect to the President but you have to consider my increasing age. But I can do the job. However, I have bigger commitments in terms of peace in the world and sustainable development,” he said.

Despite his openness to talk to China, Duterte said he would not want to offend

Former president Fidel Ramos has been asked by President Duterte to fly to China to begin talks with Chinese officials, two days after an international tribunal ruled that Beijing’s expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea has no legal basis.

the United States, the Philippines’ treaty ally. The US has vowed to remain neutral in the maritime dispute but has repeatedly scored China’s aggressive actions and reclamation in the South China Sea.

“We have allied ourselves with the western powers. So there’s an interest which we should not forget. Our interest and the interest of our allies,” Duterte said.

The Philippines, meanwhile, will raise before a gathering of world leaders in Mongolia today the urgency of a peaceful and rules-based approach to settling the South China Sea row.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. will represent Duterte in the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit where the Philippine delegation will also call on parties in the maritime dispute to respect the July 12 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague invalidating China’s massive claim in the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea. The event will be held in Ulaan Baatar.

Explaining Duterte’s decision to skip the summit, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said the President wishes “to stay close to his countrymen in the first few months of his presidency.”

The ASEM Summit – involving 51 countries – is the first major gathering of leaders after the release of the verdict of the arbitral court on the three-year-old case filed by Manila contesting Beijing’s nine-dash line claim.

China on Monday said the South China Sea issue should not be discussed in ASEM.

Duterte warned that complications might arise if China insists on imposing an air defense identification zone over the South China Sea. He said restricting freedom of navigation would also have a negative impact on the country’s economy.

“If (the sea lanes) are closed, (prices of) everything will go up because the insurance of cargoes, boats and ships there will rise. It will create another problem for our economy,” the President said.

Yasay will also discuss Duterte’s priorities and key socio-economic policies in ASEM.

On the sidelines of the summit, the DFA chief will have bilateral meetings with his counterparts to exchange views on global and regional issues.

The ASEM dialogue addresses political, economic and socio-cultural issues, with the objective of strengthening the relationship between the two regions, in a spirit of mutual respect and equal partnership.

The ASEM Summit is held every two years, with the previous one held in Milan, Italy in 2014. The Philippines is a founding member of ASEM, established in 1996.

In October 2014 in Italy, China reportedly exerted pressure on many ASEM member-countries to make them avoid the South China Sea issue.

With the victory in The Hague giving the Philippines a better negotiating position with China, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the government is now inclined to explore bilateral talks with the Asian giant.

“Don’t taunt your opponent who is already down,” Diokno said in Filipino, referring to China’s legal debacle in The Hague. “The more difficult aspect of the decision is the enforceability. Let’s be magnanimous in victory,” he quoted the President as saying.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said the Cabinet discussed all of the country’s possible responses to the PCA ruling and came up with a decision to go for talks.

“We have to talk with China. We could not avoid it,” Aguirre told members of the Malacañang Press in a Viber message yesterday.

Diokno said the President was very clear in his statement on initiating bilateral talks as the country is “starting from a better position because of that decision, kasi nasa tamang lugar tayo (because we are in the right).”

Warning

But as the Duterte administration has voiced its openness to bilateral talks with China, Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio is strongly warning against pursuing joint exploitation of resources in the West Philippine Sea with Beijing.

The magistrate stressed the Constitution clearly prohibits sharing of development of areas within the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) with other nations.

“The Constitution said the exclusive economic zone is part of the national territory and that it should be for the enjoyment and exploitation exclusively of ours alone. We cannot enter into joint development within the EEZ,” Carpio said yesterday on ANC’s “Headstart.”

The senior magistrate explained the country can engage other countries in developing or exploiting the EEZ but that they can only act as contractor and not as a sovereign entity.

“They (China) can enter as contractor but not as a sovereign agreement because that is prohibited by the Constitution. Even without the ruling of the arbitral tribunal, the EEZ is exclusively ours. We can ask other countries if they have the technology but we don’t give up our sovereign rights because the Constitution prohibited that,” he explained.

In its arbitral award last Tuesday, the PCA declared Panganiban (Mischief) Reef, Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal and Recto (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.”

Still, Carpio believes the move of the administration of President Duterte to initiate bilateral talks with China could be a viable tool for forging better relations.

“We have now a ruling that says Scarborough Shoal is a traditional fishing ground of Filipino and Chinese fishermen. So both can fish there,” the magistrate explained in a separate interview.

Carpio, a member of the legal team that presented the Philippines’ case before the tribunal, said a possible bilateral agreement with China would be the most logical option for the government to effect an enforcement of the award.

“We have to talk to China to now allow us to go there (Scarborough Shoal) because the tribunal said we have a tradition fishing right together with Chinese fishermen,” he explained. – With Alexis Romero, Giovanni Nilles, Edu Punay