China, Malaysia may protest proposed charter on Philippine territory — expert
MANILA, Philippines — China and Malaysia may file protests against the proposed revision on the constitution which seeks to strengthen the Philippines' maritime claims, a maritime law expert warned.
Dr. Jay Batongbacal, director of the UP Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said that the proposed revision would serve as a "lightning rod" for a China protest.
"I can see for example both Malaysia and China filing protests against these articles because they will read it and interpret to mean that we are referring particularly to the areas that they dispute — West Philippine Sea on the part of China and Sabah on the part of Malaysia," Batongbacal told ANC's Early Edition.
The proposed revision on the National Territory article of the Constitution includes two sections — sovereign over territory and sovereign rights.
Section 1: The Philippines has sovereignty over its territory consisting of the islands and waters encompassed by its archipelagic baselines, its territorial sea, and its airspace.
It has sovereignty over islands and features outside its archipelagic baselines pursuant to the laws of the Federal Republic, the law of nations, and the judgements of competent international courts or tribunals. It likewise has sovereignty over all the other territories belonging to the Philippines by historic right or legal title.
Section 2: The Philippines has sovereignty rights over that maritime expanse beyond its territorial sea to the extent reserved to it by international law, as well as over its extended continental shelf including the Philippine (Benham) Rise. Its citizens shall enjoy the right to all resources to which they are entitled by historic right.
Batongbacal said that the description of national territory should not become too detailed to allow flexibility when necessary.
The proposed revisions also appear to be obligating the government when these are matters of international policy.
"For me, you don’t have to say these things in the constitution. For you to actually even put it in the constitution as a directive to your own government is in a way counterproductive because it assumes that the government doesn’t even know these things and you have to give them instructions," Batongbacal said.
Claiming "historic rights" over resources would also cause confusion as it would imply that the Philippines acknowledges its validity, contrary to the July 2016 arbitral ruling that invalidated China's historic rights over the South China Sea.
This would introduce another discussion and the Chinese may use the Philippines' own constitution as an argument.
"This actually goes directly against the judgement of the tribunal which said that there can be no historic rights to the South China Sea. If at all, your historic rights will be limited to your own territorial sea but this one refers to areas beyond the territorial sea so I don’t think this would be a wise amendment to that provision," the maritime law expert added.
Batongbacal also reminded that the constitution would not have any impact internationally as it only binds the country's own people.
"There's no point in putting in provisions that will only attract protests from other countries," he said.
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