The recent Social Weather Stations poll showing that four of five
Filipinos rebuffed the government’s approach to the territorial dispute
with China proved that President Rodrigo Duterte’s policy was contrary
to the public’s position, acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio said on
Sunday.
Carpio, who champions the country’s sovereignty over the West
Philippine Sea — waters within the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive
economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea — said the latest poll also
signaled the need for the Duterte administration to rethink its stand on
the dispute.
“The Filipino people understand the situation that . . . we have to
protect our sovereign rights and we should not allow another country to
seize them. They are expressing it in the surveys,” Carpio told the
Inquirer in an interview.
‘Overwhelming majority’
“I think the Duterte administration is going one way while the
majority of the people want to go another way. So the Duterte
administration is going against the wishes of the overwhelming majority
of the people,” he said.
The poll, taken from June 27 to 30, also showed that 81 percent of
Filipinos believed it was “not right” for the government to allow
China’s militarization of Philippine-claimed reefs in the Spratly
archipelago.
According to Carpio, the results of the survey were a welcome
development, as they were released just two days after the country
marked the second anniversary of its victory over China in the Permanent
Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
In that ruling, handed down two weeks after the President came to
office in 2016, the court declared China’s claim to nearly all of the
South China Sea invalid under international law. It also found China
violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights to fish and explore for
resources in the West Philippine Sea.
But instead of asking help from the international community to
enforce the ruling, the President set it aside in exchange for aid and
investment from China.
Carpio said continued education would further help raise the Filipinos’ awareness of the importance of the arbitral ruling.
“The survey says the people want to enforce the ruling. It’s very
simple. While the President doesn’t want to enforce the ruling, 80
percent of Filipinos want it to be fully enforced,” he added.
‘Protect what is ours’
“It’s just logical and common sense that we protect what is ours. The
leaders of the country should protect them as the Constitution says
that the state should protect its marine wealth in its EEZ,” said
Carpio, a member of the legal team that won the ruling for the
Philippines.
“The Constitution says the military is the protector of our EEZ
because they are the protector of the state and its territorial
integrity. The duty falls on them and the President being the Commander
in Chief of the Armed Forces,” he added.
As he had repeatedly said in public speeches, Carpio reiterated that
there were “simple ways” for the Philippines to invoke the arbitral
decision without necessarily bringing Beijing into the picture.
For one, Carpio said the Duterte administration could enter into a sea boundary agreement with both Malaysia and Vietnam.
It could likewise seek the extension of its continental shelf off the coast of Luzon, he said.
Freedom of navigation
“We should also welcome [these] freedom of navigation [operations] by
foreign naval powers. This really enforces the arbitral ruling in the
sense that these foreign naval powers are [moving freely on] the the
high seas,” Carpio said.
As for the hanging by activists on Thursday of tarpaulin signs on
pedestrian overpasses in Metro Manila that proclaimed the Philippines a
province of China, Carpio said it was more important to “look at the
more substantive matter” of the issue.
“What are we doing now to protect our sovereign rights? That’s the question we should be asking [ourselves],” he said.
“For me, it just highlights that people are already making jokes about the Philippines becoming a province of China,” he added.
source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
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