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By Efren L. Danao, Senior Reporter
The bill endorsed by the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and
on National Defense defining the archipelagic baselines of the
Philippines is constitutional, Sen. Edgardo Angara said Tuesday.
He was reacting to the claim of Lawyer Harry
Roque of the University of the Philippines Law Center that the bill
was unconstitutional for excluding the Kalayaan Island Group, a part
of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, that is claimed in
whole or in part by the Philippines, China, Malaysia, Vietnam,
Brunei and Taiwan.
Roque said the exclusion of the Kalayaan group
violates the constitutional mandate for the government to protect
the national territory.
Angara, author of one of the five Senate bills
incorporated into the joint committee report, said the bill even
reiterates Philippine sovereignty over the Kalayaan group.
His bill actually sought to include the Kalayaan
group in the baselines, but the consolidated bill decided to place
it outside the baselines while treating it as “a regime of
islands.”
Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, chairman of the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said including territory in
the baselines is not an accepted way of defining territory.
Drawing map lines not accepted
“It is not accepted in international law to
expand territory simply by drawing lines on a map,” Santiago said,
while stressing that declaring contested islands as “a regime of
islands” is accepted under the United Nations Convention on the
Law of the Sea or Unclos.
Former Justice Secretary Estelito Mendoza, the
only surviving member of the Philippine delegation to the Unclos
headed by the late Sen. Arturo Tolentino, said at a technical
working group meeting that most of the Spratly Islands where the
basepoints will be located are occupied by other countries.
“To me, it is simply absurd and putting at
great risk any baselines we will draw to a basepoints in islands
occupied by other counties. It is best that we draw baselines that
one will be beyond question,” Mendoza said.
Angara, at the same time, said he was most
willing to listen to arguments on the unconstitutionality of the
joint committee report.
“I will study the issue carefully and I am
willing to amend the bill if necessary,” he said, as if
anticipating some challenges to its constitutionality.
Section 2 of the bill states:“The Kalayaan
Island Group, declared as belonging and subject to the sovereignty
of the Philippines under Presidential Decree 1956, and Scarborough
Shoal, over which the Philippines exercises sovereignty and
jurisdiction, shall be declared as ‘regime of islands’ of the
Philippines under Article 121 of the United Nations Convention of
the Law of the Sea.”
Rep. Antonio Cuenco of Cebu City, chairman of
the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, insisted at a joint hearing
with the Senate on the inclusion of the phrase “belonging and
subject to the sovereignty of the Philippines” so there would be
no mistaking the Philippine intention of claiming the Kalayaan
group.
The Senate bill also provides in Section 3:
“This Act shall be without prejudice to Philippine dominion and
sovereignty over all portions of the national territory as defined
under Art l of the Philippine Constitution and by applicable
laws.”
The Unclos provides that everything enclosed in
the baselines constitute the internal waters. The waters 12 nautical
miles seaward from the baseline constitute the territorial waters,
another 12 nautical miles, the contiguous zone and 200 nautical
miles, the extended exclusive economic zone or EEZ.
Santiago said the present concern of the
committees is an extended continental shelf, which according to the
Unclos, can exceed the 200 miles of our EEZ but shall not go beyond
350 nautical miles.
She added the 350-mile extended continental
shelf might have some oil or undersea metals that would make the
Philippines rich.
All claimant-countries, including the
Philippines, believe there are some 200 billion barrels of oil,
natural gas, minerals and polymetals such as gold, silver, iron
and nickel, under the sea surrounding the Spratly Islands.
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