Philippines told to fast-track rules that will enforce maritime zone law

By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter

THE PHILIPPINE government should fast-track the rules that will enforce a law that defines its territories within its exclusive economic zone amid China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, security analysts said at the weekend.

“Manila has yet to craft the implementing rules and regulations and ask permission from the International Maritime Organization on maritime zones to discredit any overlapping claims with other claimant-states in the West Philippine Sea,” Chester B. Cabalza, founding president of Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, said in a Facebook Messenger chat.

The International Maritime Organization is an agency in charge of overseeing the safety and security of maritime vessels, according to its website.

President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. signed the measure into law last week, which aims to assert Manila’s territories in its exclusive economic zone amid harassment from the Chinese Coast Guard.

The law outlines the Southeast Asian nation’s territorial and sovereign boundaries as it tries to enforce a 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling favoring Manila’s claim over contested waters in the South China Sea.

“It stands in stark relief to China’s ambiguous and constantly shifting claims, under which it sporadically pronounces ‘indisputable sovereignty’ over amorphous zones it labels ‘adjacent’ or ‘relevant’ waters, but which are never clearly defined,” Raymond M. Powell, a fellow at the Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, said in an X message.

In a statement on Nov. 8, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs opposed the new law, which it said illegally includes parts of Chinese territories in the South China Sea.

“Once again, China urges the Philippines to immediately withdraw all its personnel and facilities from the aforementioned islands and reefs and immediately tow away the warship illegally grounded at Ren’ai Jiao (Second Thomas Shoal,” it said.

The Senate has also passed a bill that seeks to set up sea lanes at the Balintang Channel, Celebes and Sulu Seas, among other waterways, to assert Philippine sovereignty.

In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague said China’s claims had no legal basis, a decision Beijing has rejected.

China claims as its territory much of the South China Sea, a conduit for roughly $3 trillion in annual ship-borne trade, despite competing claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Manila and Beijing have repeatedly clashed in the South China Sea, accusing each other of aggressive behavior involving their ships and of damaging the marine environment.

Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil L. Gavan last week said that the PCG is set to receive 49 new ships by 2028, 40 of which are funded by a French loan worth P25.8 billion and five from Japan, to boost patrols in the waterway.

“The new Maritime Zones law is a positive development establishing the Philippines’ maritime claims as being firmly grounded in accepted international law and giving Manila a path forward toward enshrining its view as the correct one,” Mr. Powell said.