The Philippines is an archipelago of 7,641 islands, with more than half of its cities and municipalities lying in coastal areas, thus, considered as a center of global marine biodiversity.
Most of these coastal communities are dependent on the bounty of the healthy seas for sustenance and income.
The country’s Exclusive Economic Zone covers 2,263,816 kilometers (874,064 square miles), located in the South China Sea, the Philippine Sea, and the Celebes Sea. Our total land area, including the inland bodies of water, is 300,000 kms. (120,000 square miles), having the fifth longest coastline in the world with 36,289 kms. (22,549 miles).
Under Sec. 2, Art. XII of the 1987 Constitution, “The State shall protect the nation’s marine wealth in its archipelagic waters, territorial sea, and exclusive economic zone, and reserve its use and enjoyment exclusively to Filipino citizens.”
At the United Nations in 2015, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries brokered a new binding agreement under the UN Convention on the Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS) to protect the world’s oceans, including all the marine resources, which provide that the Philippines has “sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and its subsoil, and with regard to other activities for the economic exploitation and exploration of the zone, such as the production of energy from the water, currents and winds.”
On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in favor of the Philippines in its historic case against China over the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea. The PCA said the tribunal “concluded that, as between the Philippines and China, there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources in excess of the rights provided for by the Convention, within the sea areas falling within the ‘9-dash line.”
This ruling was snubbed by China.
An alarm is raised as the US, the Philippines, and other countries push for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, warning against Beijing’s installation of military sites in reclaimed areas, other incursions to expand territories in the mineral-rich maritime region that straddles vital shipping lanes.
Acting U.S. Defense Sec. Patrick Shanahan has emphasized that Beijing should also follow a “rules-based order” in the region, which has seen relative peace during the past half century. “Behavior that erodes other nations’ sovereignty and sows distrust of China’s intentions must end,” he told a recent Singapore forum. “Until it does, we stand against a myopic, narrow, and parochial vision of the future, and we stand for the free and open order that has benefited us all — including China.”
But China is issuing its economic power to back its moves. Remember the new golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rule.
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