‘Phl not helpless on arbitration case vs China’

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines will not be totally helpless if China ignores a ruling by an international arbitral court repudiating the Asian giant’s massive territorial claim in the South China Sea, Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said yesterday.

The United Nations’ Permanent Court of Arbitration based in The Hague is expected to decide soon on the three-year-old case filed by Manila seeking a reaffirmation of its entitlements in the South China Sea and contesting Beijing’s expansive claim.

Carpio said it would be more costly for Beijing to ignore the ruling than to comply with it.

Speaking at a forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP), he said the Philippines has to be creative as he proposed a suspension for 100 years of staking any claim in the South China Sea, as well as declaring the area a Marine Protected Area to allow the reefs to recover.

In the suspension of claims, he said there would be no military facilities and only coast guards would be allowed to protect the resource rich area.

“We fight our own battle on the resources but with the ruling we can do it,” Carpio said.

China has repeatedly stated “it will neither accept nor participate in the arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines.”

Carpio said he is confident the arbitral tribunal would decide in favor of the Philippines and that the naval powers would help enforce the ruling.

In his lecture on the issue during the Manila Defense and Security Symposium last week, Carpio said all the members of the tribunal know the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) “by heart, that is why I’m pretty confident that the nine-dash line will be struck down.”