International Law and Constitutional experts who asked the Supreme Court yesterday to nullify the recently signed Philippine baseline law, went back to the Supreme Court today to prevent government officials from depositing it with the United Nations next week.
Petitioners said they learned that a delegation of officials from offices the Department of Foreign Affairs, the National Resource Mapping and Information Authority (NAMRIA) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) are scheduled to fly to the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the United States of America on Sunday, April 5, 2009, to register and deposit the new Philippine baselines law, among other things.
They said they also learned that an official delegation led by the head of the DFA’s Center for Maritime and Ocean Affairs, lawyer Henry Bensurto Jr., is due to leave Manila for the UN headquarters in New York on Sunday.
The petitioners led by University of the Philippines lawyers Harry Roque and Merlin Magallona and Akbayan Representative Risa Hontiveros asked the High Court to “immeidately issue a Temporary Restraining Order and/or Writ of Preliminary Prohibitory Injunction prohibiting Respondents from implementing or invoking Republic Act 9522.
Click here manifestmotionapril2 for the SC motion.
Please see VERA Files story on petition to nullify.
Today is Thursday… How quickly can SC issue a restraining order (I mean, does the SC do it — issue restraing order — at all?)?
Even if the courts, whichever courts, issue the restraining order, it’s got to be served and it’s simple to avoid receiving the order in person.
Everything is so slow in the Philippines that those guys would already be in NY before they finish typing up the order.
Everything is just so slow, painfully slow in the Philippines except when committing kalokohan!
Its okay, no one listens to the SC anyway.
I’m glad Anna asked (April 1 post) “Ellen what will happen if we don’t submit to UN deadline?”. That gives me the opportunity to explain that if we don’f file our claim to extended continental shelves, there is nothing that the international community will recognize as delineation of philippine territory. Where do we complain if foreign vessels and foreign aircraft (airspace above archipelagic waters belong to the country that owns it) intrude into our territory if it’s not recognized by the international community?
What we are submitting is incomplete because we have not finished documenting our extented continental shelf claim. it’s just to stop the clock. Deadline is May 13, 2009.
The reason why we are submitting it a month ahead is to give the UN body time to evaluate conflicting claims.
VERA Files did a two-part explanatory piece on this issue last year. Please click here: ago. http://www.verafiles.org/index.php/focus/45-rp-in-last-minute-scramble-to-beat-un-deadline.
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:46 pm (Edit this comment)
I have my reservations with the petition that Atty. Roque and company filed with the SC. I believe that since we are really an archipelagic state, we should claim extended continental shelf based on that. My view is closer to that of Sen. Trillanes. Click here for his position paper on that issue: http://senator.trillanes.org/the-baseline-issue/
the Philippines has to make the submission as soon as we can because for every time another country files ahead of us, the CLCS’ scheduling and workload sets us back 6 months down the line. As it is, if we were to file today, it would be around 2014 by the time the CLCS finishes reviewing the submission. if we wait until 13 May, and in the intervening time a number of countries make their submissions as expected, we’d probably be looking at 2020 or beyond before the CLCS gets to us. if we don’t make a submission in accordance with UNCLOS, we’d be giving up a potential claim of hundreds of square kilometers of seabed that extend far beyond the Treaty of Paris lines. is this in the Philippines’ interest?
you are right in having reservations about the petition. the petition’s arguments are terribly confused. as a person actually familiar with UNCLOS it’s easy for me to spot basic errors.
(1) Ratification is the act that binds a State to a treaty (that’s one of the basic rules under the Law of Treaties); this was already done by the Philippines in 1984. The deposit of information on the coordinates of the baselines under UNCLOS Article 16.2 is for purpose of informing other States of the location of the baselines from which the maritime zones are to be measured; it is not the operative act that binds the country to UNCLOS.
(2) the use of the regime of islands to determine baselines in the KIG and Scarborough Shoal DO NOT weaken the status of Philippine sovereignty over them. there is NO rule in international law which requires every single piece of State territory to be enclosed in only one set of baselines. the territories do not even have to be physically connected! look at the US, with Alaska & Hawaii separated from the mainland, or the UK which has islands in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, or Malaysia which has Indonesian waters cutting right between the peninsula and the island, and so many other States with separate island territories. one just needs to look at the world map. this is the reason why China still “solemnly” protested the baselines law despite their separation from the main archipelago, which some people argued was in favor of China. the mere fact that we said that we were using art 121 on those islands is itself an act of sovereignty. and what worries China is that it is a very reasonable exercise of sovereignty with an actual and plausible basis in international law.
(3) neither does RA9522 have anything to do with Sabah, since it amends only sec 1 of RA3046 as amended by RA5446, but does not say anything about sec 2 of RA5446. UNCLOS governs jurisdiction over the sea, not land territory, which is governed by different principles of international law. baselines are a feature of the land, not the other way around.
(4) as for the permissive nature of the obligation to draw archipelagic baselines, petitioners clearly do not appreciate the implications of not using archipelagic baselines. if archipelagic baselines are not used, the international community does not recognize the Treaty of Paris but rather considers the Philippines as an ordinary coastal state with only 12 nautical mile territorial waters around EACH island. that is far, far less sovereignty than what the Treaty of Paris portrays.
these are just some of the many other errors in the petition. i’d better just stop before i end up violating the sub-judice rule.
ellen,
Thanks for the explanation — I will re-visit the vera files and try to understand what’s going on more in detail.
As you all know, there were violent protests in London during the G-20 Summit. The focus of anger was on the US which they blamed as the cause of all these financial troubles. Obama took it calmly and even improved America’s image by making friends with other leaders. What if it was Bush who attended the Summit…or McCain is the President? What do you say, dandaw?
When I wasnt looking, we lost 24 islands to the Vietnamese. I knew we only lost 1 island to the Vietnamese, one island abandoned by the marines in 1980 or around that time. Or roughly one island each year. So whats the use claiming islands when we cant watch over them. I didnt mind counting what the Chinese took. I cant look anymore.
Good observation. Before even making claims, can we physically defend these? How can a rag tag Phil. Navy boat match the modern navy vessels of other countries?
We can if we want,we can’t if we don’t want.It’s our will that matters.
I agree with you patria adorada. As of the moment, many of us Filipinos do not want. It is because many of us are suffering but do not now what to look for to be liberated from it in the first place.
Our national psyche have long been manipulated by our American and Chinese invaders into dependency on their military and economy. Many of us do not know that this started in 1899 when the Americans invaded us and let the Chinese take advantage of our weak resistance after the death of 200,000 to 900,000 of us Filipinos. The Americans wanted us to remain weak so that we will be perpetually dependent, resulting to giving what we have to them whatever they want.
Many of us do not know that before the American invasion, we were already an independent and fullfledged nation. Our nation was born when we became independent from Spain in 1898. We had a rich and beautiful land and sea. We had a unique and proud race. We had a system that was already developing to become responsive to our nation and functional to the community of nations.
Yes, this is our home! We have been displaced from it. All these were seized from us by our foreign invaders. Now they are the ones enjoying our valuable assets. They are the ones controlling our home.
But Filipinos among us who know, have now the duty to let these information reach to each and every brother Filipino. We can at least start with the critical mass. Only then can the majority of us Filipinos start to decide that, what in the words of patria adorada, “we want”. With these knowledge, our collective energies can be focused on how WE CAN recover our home. Then WE CAN come home to our Patria Adorada!
Are we better off if Spain did not conquer us? For one thing, we won’t be a Catholic nation today.
Had Spain not conquered us, there is no Filipino nation to speak of today. There is no archipelgic baseline to speak of because there is no basis for it. We may be composed of two or three different nations. Or some portions of what we know today as Filipinas may be under Malaysia. Some would probably be under Indonesia. While some would be under the state of People’s Republic of China. Or it could be that American invasion as well as Chinese invasion of our islands would be legitimate. It could not be any other way since we would not have existed as a nation yet. One thing is certain, Senator Trillanes would not have any basis for his Philippine Archipelagic Baseline today.
Then there would not be any need for us to fight for the recovery of our home- our Filipinas.
The Philippines’ first ECS submission was filed yesterday April 8, and is now available for download from the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS):
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/submission_phl_22_2009.htm
This begins the process of review and (hopefully) eventual approval by the CLCS. Further information may be accessed from the CLCS homepage:
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/clcs_home.htm