MANILA – Voting 15-0, the Senate ratified on third and final reading the so-called baselines bill which defines the country’s territory in accordance with the United Nations Convention of the Law on the Sea (Unclos).
Earlier, the bill’s principal sponsor, administration Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, warned that its ratification would enable the country to beat the May 13 deadline of the Unclos regarding the issue.
Santiago, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, explained the bill establishes a new baseline which serves as official notice to all states of the extent of the limits of the Philippine maritime zones,
Under international law, the woman senator said it defines baseline as the “line that divides the land from the sea, which the extent of a state’s coastal jurisdiction is measured.”
With the Senate approval, Santiago pointed out that the country is making clear its stand on its jurisdiction over the disputed Spratly Islands group and the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea under the “regime of islands principle” which is recognized by international law.
In this light, the regime of islands principle adopted by the bill is sufficient to protect the country’s claim on these disputed territories, Santiago emphasized as she gave three reasons why the bill adopted such principle.
First, she said, it has the advantage of avoiding conflicting base points with other cl.aimants to the Spratlys. Second, she said he increases the size of the country’s waters its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by 76,518 nautical miles.
And third, Santiago said, the bill does not deviate from the natural shape of the country’s archipelagic nature and thus complied with the Unclos provisions,
According to Santiago, the basic cause of conflict among claimant nations to the Spratlys seabed is the substantial deposits of oil, natural gas, minerals and polymetals such as gold, silver, iron and nickel.
She recalled that in the 1990s, the Philippines,China and Vietnam had near skirmishes around the Mischief Reef in the Spratlys.
To avoid similar possible encounters on the disputed Spratlys, Santiago said the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand signed the Asean Declaration on the South China Sea.
Asean stands for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to which the six signatories of the declaration belong. It has since grown to 10 members, along with Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma).
Ten years later, Santiago said the Asean governments and China signed in 2002 the Asean-China Declaration of Parties on the South China Sea, which maintained the status quo and temporarily suspended issues of ownership, thus reducing tension among the claimant nations.
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