President Rodrigo Duterte’s purported verbal agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping allowing Chinese fishermen to fish within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone cannot be implemented, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said Wednesday.
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Locsin said the President may have been led to believe by his legal advisers that the Philippines can allow other countries to fish in its EEZ if there is an excess of the allowable catch as mandated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“The verbal agreement cannot be enforced on us because it’s verbal. You need a document to prove an agreement. That’s the way it is,” Locsin said, in an interview with ANC.
He added that the informal agreement between Duterte and Xi was “not policy” and the Philippines was not allowing China to fish within the Philippines’ EEZ.
“He [Duterte] may have been led to believe we had a surplus and he may have said sure, that’s fine,” the country’s top diplomat said.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo, however, insisted that the verbal agreement is “enforceable and legally binding” and is in effect.
“It’s being enforced right? They [the Chinese] don’t bother us. It means it’s being done,” Panelo told Palace reporters.
He said Locsin was working under the “wrong interpretation.”
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles added that the verbal agreement between the President and Xi was just “an agreement to become good neighbors” with China.
The June 9 ship-ramming incident at Recto Bank in the West Philippine Sea has triggered debate on the country’s territory and its rights over the natural resources within its EEZ, the 200-nautical mile area measured from the baselines over which the country enjoys jurisdiction. Recto Bank is part of the country’s EEZ.
Meanwhile, Locsin revealed that some of the findings of the Philippine Coast Guard’s investigation into the June 9 Recto Bank incident sinking of a Philippine fishing boat by a Chinese vessel in Recto Bank has put Filipino fishermen in a bad light.
“I got the Coast Guard report immediately. Our investigation was finished. It was exhaustive. It’s not, I got to tell you, it doesn’t paint our fishermen in the brightest lights,” Locsin said, in the same interview.
Locsin said the PCG report found that only the cook was awake before the Filipino fishing boat, Gem-Vir 1, was hit by the Chinese vessel.
“Not that they’re wrong but they had no lookout, even the enemies of the President say you need an assigned lookout on a boat. They didn’t [have any],” he said.
“There was no lookout. The cook was out there on deck. Everybody was asleep. And he looked up and said ‘there’s a boat coming’ and continued with whatever he was doing and he looked up again and said ‘it’s coming closer.’ And then he looked up again and he said ‘My God it’s gonna hit’ and he shouted,” Locsin said.
He added the cook “had a small light.”
“Whether or not that light should have been sufficient to warn the oncoming Chinese vessel, I don’t know,” he said.
Locsin declined to give more details, saying he was not authorized to do so by the PCG.
The 22 Filipino crew members were left at adrift at sea after their fishing boat was rammed and sunk by a Chinese vessel. They were later rescued by a Vietnamese vessel.
The Filipino fishermen claimed the Chinese vessel intentionally hit their boat and abandoned them when their vessel began to sink.
However, after meeting with Philippine officials recently, the fishermen changed their statement, saying the collision could have been an accident.
Locsin also maintained his position against holding a joint investigation with China.
“In a joint investigation, I do not believe that China will allow our Coast Guard to go to Chinese soil, no more than we would allow Chinese Coast Guard to step on Philippine soil to interview our fishermen. Will they allow us to interview the captain of the Chinese vessel?” he said.
“When you come up with separate investigations, the two results are there, then you can compare notes and say why is it like this?” he added.
Locsin also said he will ask China to be careful about sending many vessels into disputed waters.
“I will not ask China to seek safe passage in the EEZ. Safe passage is a legal concept. What I’m gonna ask, as I’ve said it, be careful of swarming,” Locsin said.
“If you swarm, then what happened in the Reed Bank was an accident waiting to happen so don’t do it. But if you insist on doing it, this will keep deteriorating our friendship and I don’t want to do that because China offers things that the rest of the world does not,” he added.
Recto Bank, also known as Reed Bank, is about 85 nautical miles from the nearest coast of Palawan province.
The feature falls within the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone of the Philippines under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which aims to govern the use of offshore areas and sets territorial limits of coastal states.
President Duterte told the Cabinet on Monday that he would seek China’s assurance that the rights and safety of Filipino fishermen are guaranteed in the West Philippine Sea.
At the Palace, Nograles said threats of impeachment could lead the President to go to war with China.
“Don’t threaten him with things that could lead the country into war. That’s basically his point,” Nograles said about Duterte’s recent threat to jail anyone who would file an impeachment complaint against him.
Earlier, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario raised the possibility of Duterte’s impeachment for violating the Constitution that mandates him to defend the country’s EEZ against foreign aggressors.
President Duterte drew flak after he revealed that he had a “verbal agreement” with China’s Xi to allow Chinese fishermen within the country’s EEZ.
Malacañang had previously played down the jail threat, calling it “an expression of disgust” and “righteous indignation.”
No law in the country penalizes those who will file an impeachment case against the President.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo also said that Duterte has a supermajority in the 18th Congress, which makes a successful impeachment bid against him impossible. With MJ Blancaflor, Macon Ramos-Araneta and PNA
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