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TWO years after the historic victory of the Philippines against China in a landmark international arbitration decision on the Western Philippines Sea / South China Sea dispute, the country seems to face another challenge.
intervenes after the publication of the preliminary draft federal constitution by the 22 members of the Advisory Committee (Con-com) charged with examining the 1987 Constitution with the aim of passing the form of government from the unitary country to a federal
. the articles on the national territory and the national economy and heritage are not good with the marine law expert Jay Batongbacal.
The professor told the BusinessMirror on the sidelines of the forum on the anniversary of the decision of the South China Sea is "poorly written" and that the provision on the national territory in the 1987 Charter is "better" than that proposed by Con-com.
"F or me, it is [the Con-com provision] not well written and it attracts only protests and there were errors there so it's not good", said Batongbacal in Filipino. on disputed waters as opposed to what Con-com has previously indicated as their reason for revising the current provision on the national territory.
"The goal that they say is actually flawed because it is counterproductive," he said. "By putting it there you do not reinforce the claim, in fact you even highlight that you still do not know or [are] still not sure [about it]," he said.
He added that the law does not contribute anything to international law because other countries are not bound by our internal law.
"How can you say that by enacting a law, you will be able to strengthen your claim on this territory?"
Asked to find out if he had been consulted by Con-com on his national territory proposal, Batongbacal said that he had been asked to make a shorter and more compact suggestion, but that was not necessary. Was not used by the committee.
Article 1 The national territory of the draft federal charter states: "The Philippines has sovereignty over their territory, consisting of islands and waters encompassed by its archipelagic baselines, its territorial sea, its seabed, its subsoil , its continental shelf and its airspace. It has sovereignty over islands and entities outside its archipelagic baselines under the laws of the Federal Republic, the law of nations and the judgments of the competent international courts and tribunals. It also has sovereignty over other territories belonging to the Philippines by historical right or legal title. "
Batongbacal explained that among the errors in the proposed provision, there is the one in which the Philippines claims sovereignty over the continental shelf." This is not possible because under international law we do not have the right to do so. have sovereign rights over the continental shelf, "he said, adding that the provision would also attract protests from Malaysia and China." He said the current provision is still "more flexible and inclusive" since It still has room to accommodate the possibility of some changes in the national territory of the country.
Section 2 of the same Article of the proposed Federal Charter stated that: The Philippines has sovereign rights over this sea extent beyond its territorial sea to the extent reserved to it by international law, as well as over its extended continental shelf, including the rise of the Philippines. Its citizens will enjoy the right to all the resources in these regions. "
" The proposed one … why highlight Philippine Rise? What if you get another continental shelf? That's why I say that it's not good, from a technical point of view on my part, it's not well written, "he said.
Batongbacal said that the proposed constitution may also cause Congress to lift economic restrictions.In the article on the national economy and heritage, Con-com proposed that Congress could , by law, change the capital requirement under the section of the media, advertising and educational institutions, Batongbacal also questioned the decision of Con-com to maintain the minimum requirements regarding of equity, but at the same time add a provision that Congress can completely change or remove these restrictions, saying that it is "misleading."
"It's like a way for them to get rid of these property requirements, even though people may not want to make them go away, it's like they could use Congress to get around this kind of "Now, what they did was double-edged or double-edged, that is, if people ratify the constitution , they will say "agree, we favor these restrictions" but at the same time, they ask the people to approve the provision that says that these protections can be lifted when the Congress so decides ", at- he says.
"The purpose of the Constitution and all its provisions is to protect the rights of individuals and access to their natural resources.All restrictions on equity are supposed to protect the ability to control these businesses. and make sure they are not used against these people, "he said.
Batongbacal noted that with the removal of these protections, people are left to fend for themselves. when the government decides to engage in all kinds of unfair transactions.
"Without these protections, although you do not know, we do not know where they will take that," he said. "It will be easier for them to say goodbye to the decision," he said.
It is July 12, 2016 that the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague rendered the landmark ruling overturning China's massive claims to the waters, noting that the Asian superpower has not no legal basis for claiming historic rights in the maritime zones of their "Nine Line".
However, to date, China does not recognize the arbitral award.
In the same forum marking the second anniversary of the decision, Antonio T. Carpio, Senior Judge and Acting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who was part of the legal team that seized the arbitral tribunal, said that his plan at the UN General Assembly and sponsor a resolution that China should abide by the decision.
Carpio stated that they felt that the resolution would easily get the majority and that they also planned to sponsor the same resolution year after year. 19659003] "It was supposed to be the plan but when the decision was made 10 days or 12 days after the outgoing president took power, he did not do it. the policy has changed, so what we are trying to do now is to preserve the decision for the next administration, "he said.
Agreements with Vietnam, Malaysia
Carpio also noted during the forum that the Philippines can enforce the decision without the participation of China in entering into maritime border agreements with Vietnam and the United States. Malaysia.
"The Philippines and Vietnam can reach an agreement on the delimitation of their extensive continental expanses that overlap beyond the Spratlys". a maritime boundary agreement may be concluded between the Philippines and Malaysia to delimit their contiguous exclusive economic zones between Borneo and Palawan ", Carpio added.
According to Carpio, these agreements adopt a decision in state practice even though China is also said that the Philippines may also file an extensive claim on the continental shelf off the coast of Luzon facing the South China Sea before the unit became part of this agreement. [19659003] United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf
Although it was "comforted" by the fact that Foreign Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano drew a "red line" on Scarborough Shoal He believes that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should Southeast Asian countries must also make the Scarborough Shoal Asean red line, that is to say that China can not build on Scarborough Shoal
make the Scarborough Shoal the official Red Line of the Philippine-American Mutual Defense Treaty.
"After all, it's President Obama who told President Xi Jinping in 2015 that Scarborough Shoal was a red line," he said. ] The Duterte administration has been criticized for taking a more flexible approach when it comes to dealing with China over the maritime dispute. Malacañang and Cayetano, however, insisted that the Philippines continues to assert its sovereignty and sovereign rights over disputed waters and that they have already filed diplomatic protests against China.
China Using Force-Poling
However, Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a video message during the forum that all actions of China, including its enforcement, the harassment, its construction activities, do ["Aulieudecelailpeintuneimaged'unpaysquiestprêtàutiliserlaforceouaumoinsunemenacedelaforcepourobtenirsoncheminetpasunquial'intentionderespecterl'ordred'arbitrageen2016outoutautreeffortdiplomatique"adéclaréPolingnotantquelaChinen'apascessédemilitarisersesîlesartificiellesdanslamerdeChineméridionale"CequenousavonsvudelaChineestunpaysutilisantdeseffortsdiplomatiques"pourcorrespondreàlapositiondeconciliationdugouvernementDuterteadéclaréPoling"pourcontinueràfairedesprogrèssurleterrain"EnattendantaajoutéMPolinglaChine"n'&utiliseceseffortsdiplomatiquesquecommetactiquedilatoirejusquTothedaywhentheydecidetouseforceoratleastaforcefromthePhilippinestoconvincePhilippinesandotherapplicantstoacceptthenameofChineseSouthernChina"
Former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said in his speech that the government
had allowed the country to be a" voluntary victim "in China; and the administration is an "accomplice" of Beijing for allowing the latter to deprive the Filipinos of what is rightfully theirs and continuing to jeopardize the outcome of the trial.
"Where are we going from here?" What should we do now as a willing and complicit victim who has fully embraced our great northern neighbor, who clearly acts as a tyrant, a great robber and an outlaw -the-international law? ", he said
position that coercive diplomacy has no place in a rules-based international order.Our common goal is peace and prosperity without sacrifice our sovereignty and our sovereign rights, "he added. "The way we choose to assert our rights and our dignity as a nation today will be the legacy that the next generation of our country will have to live on."
Del Rosario also urged Filipinos to express their feelings to the government and exercise "Finally, we need all our friends in the community of nations who believe in the rule of law to help us, but before that we can hope for help, we must first demonstrate that we deserve to be helped, "he said.
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