When I hear those incredibly biased (I’m being kind) reports these days about how President Rodrigo Duterte is supposedly giving away our territory to the Chinese, I remember how his predecessor lost Scarborough Shoal in 2012. Yes, it was Noynoy Aquino, the supposed ally of the Americans, who nearly went to war over Scarborough, by sending a lone Philippine Navy vessel without US backup against several well-armed Chinese warships—only to chicken out by returning it to Manila for a permanent “refueling” stop.
And I recall an early State of the Nation Address by Aquino, as well, during which he promised to defend Recto (or Reed) Bank “like it was Recto Avenue.” But Aquino presided over the lowest point of our relations with Beijing, during which the Chinese seized, occupied and repurposed nearly all of the western parts of our claimed territory off Palawan with nary a peep from his American patrons, who considered the $5 trillion worth of cargo transported annually over the disputed sea to be always of greater importance.
(Special mention, of course, must be made here of the role played by that national nuisance and Aquino BFF, Senator Antonio Trillanes, who made more than a dozen clandestine trips to Beijing as the president’s “back channel negotiator,” but who only succeeded in ruining our relations with the Chinese some more. Whatever happened to the investigations of Trillanes’ alleged treasonous role as illegitimate envoy to China?)
These days, it’s important to remember who gave away our territory to the Chinese by empty war-like posturing. And who “liberated” Scarborough for Filipino fishermen by convincing Beijing to lift its de facto blockade at the reef after a state visit to China, during which he convinced our giant neighbor that we were now going it alone geopolitically—that would be Duterte, not Aquino.
Now, Duterte is being snidely accused of supposedly giving away Benham Rise on the Philippines’ eastern seaboard to Beijing, after reports that Chinese ships were seen in the area. But what’s really going on?
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First of all, do we own the Benham Rise (a.k.a. Benham Plateau), a massive underwater landform in the Pacific Ocean to the east of Luzon? Yes and no, according to one of the foremost authorities on the country’s legal territorial claims.
Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio explained that the Philippines enjoys sovereign rights but does not have sovereignty over the plateau, which is believed to hold huge amounts of minerals and oil, apart from being home to diverse marine life regularly gathered by Filipino fishermen for generations. According to Carpio, our sovereign rights are “less than sovereignty,” or outright ownership, based on a ruling of the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
The UN ruled that the Philippines’ claim that Benham Rise is part of its extended continental shelf in 2012, as defined in the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. The Philippines petitioned the UN to declare the underwater landmass ours in 2008.
Carpio, who is an adviser of President Rodrigo Duterte on the country’s territorial claims, was part of the delegation that argued in favor of the official declaration of Benham Rise as part of Philippine territory before the UN. He explained that the UN ruling made economic exploitation of the area, which is wider than the islands of Luzon, Samar and Leyte combined, the exclusive right of the Philippines—but that this did not prevent other countries from enjoying freedom of navigation or conducting scientific surveys or studies in it.
Carpio said yesterday:
“[W]e have sovereign rights over Benham Rise because we have exclusive right to explore and exploit the oil, gas and other mineral resources [there], which has been confirmed by the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf as part of the Extended Continental Shelf of the Philippines. [However] other states, like China, have the right to conduct in Benham Rise (1) fishery research because the fish in the ECS belongs to mankind; (2) surveys on water salinity and water currents because the water column in the ECS belongs to mankind; and (3) depth soundings for navigational purposes because there is freedom of navigation in the ECS.”
So the Chinese are correct when they said that the reported presence of their ships in Benham Rise is not illegal, as long as they are not conducting commercial fishing or—heaven forbid—once again creating new “islands” to turn into military installations, like they did in the West Philippine Sea. But we have dibs on the exploitation of resources there, including marine life, oil and gas.
So calm down, everyone. As long as the Chinese are just passing through and conducting research, they can go in and out of Benham Rise, like everyone else; if they start trying to attempt the funny stuff they did on our western seaboard, then we can begin making noise—a whole lot of it, since that’s about all we can do.
And never forget who really gave away our territory to China. With the “help” of Trillanes, no less.