Philippines' maritime 'acts' undermine peaceful order in the South China Sea

Editor's note: Hou Yi, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is the director and a researcher at the China Marine History Research Office in the Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Since 1961, the Philippines has sought to expand its unlawful maritime claims through legislation. 

In 1973, the Philippine Constitution was amended to declare the national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all the other territories belonging to the Philippines by historic or legal title, including the territorial sea, the air space, the subsoil, the sea-bed, the insular shelves, and the submarine areas over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction.

In 1987, the Philippine Constitution was further amended with the deletion of the provision on historic title. It is provided that "the national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the Philippines."

The Constitution is the fundamental law of a country, and amending the Constitution is a severe matter, especially with regard to the content of the expression of territorial scope, which needs to be handled with great care. It is known that the Philippines began to occupy the islands in the South China Sea in the 1970s and entered the peak period of seizing the islands in the South China Sea in the 1980s.

The Philippine amendment of the Constitution and the constant changes in the expression of the territorial scope are essentially meant to complement its illegal acts of occupying the islands in the South China Sea and to endorse its illegally acquired interests, with complete disregard for the regional situation and its relations with China. In the view of the Philippine government, whenever there is a possibility or it is beneficial to the Philippine government, it can introduce such unlawful regulations at any time.

Therefore, the Philippines' introduction of the so-called "Philippine Maritime Zones Act" and "Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act" is its usual tactic. The signing of the two "Acts" by the Philippines is a concrete reflection of the current provocative South China Sea policy of the Philippine Government at the legal and cognitive levels, which runs counter to the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and seriously violates the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which will inevitably aggravate the complexity of the situation in the South China Sea.

China released baselines for the territorial sea adjacent to Huangyan Dao on October 10, showing firm determination to safeguard sovereignty and maritime rights and interests.

Some far-sighted people in the Philippines have also opposed the current Philippine government's perverse policy on the South China Sea. Former Philippine presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao has published an opinion piece, criticizing the Marcos Jr. government's irrational and alarming policy toward China. He called on the Marcos government to change this most destructive foreign policy at hand so as not to cause hindrance to the country's development.

In recent years, the Marcos Jr government's confrontation with China on the South China Sea policy is inseparable from the United States. The United States has been constantly pushing the Philippines to goad China in the South China Sea in the military and diplomatic fields, and provided a large amount of military assistance to the Philippines, aiming to cultivate the Philippines as a standard-bearer among Southeast Asian countries to contain China's development, to serve the United States in building hegemony in East Asia and Southeast Asia. With the end of the U.S. elections and the coming to power of Donald Trump, the Marcos Jr government intends to pass these two Acts, on the one hand, to express to the United States its willingness to follow the United States to contain China, and on the other hand, to further bind the Philippines to the United States and seek support from the United States.

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