Carpio disputes Duterte on China’s possession of South China Sea

Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio on Friday disputed the statement attributed to President Rodrigo Duterte that China was already in possession of the disputed South China Sea.

While China was in physical possession of the Paracel Islands and the Scarborough Shoal, Carpio said these features and their territorial seas make up less than eight percent of the total area of the disputed waters.

"Factually, China is not in possession of the South China Sea," the most senior associate justice said in a statement a day after Duterte was quoted as saying that the vast waters were already in China's hands.

The remark attributed to Duterte as part of his answer to a question by reporters in Singapore as regards holding military drills in the South China Sea.

Duterte was in the city-state to attend meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

“No because... I said China is already in possession. It’s now in their hands. So why do you have to create frictions, strong military activity that will prompt a response from China?” Duterte said.

However, Carpio said about 25 percent of the South China Sea are high seas, which under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) "belong to all mankind."

"No state can possess or own the high seas, which belong to all mankind," he said. "Under UNCLOS, there is freedom of navigation and overflight in the high seas for all nations."

He also stressed that the Philippines, "like all other coastal states in the world," has exclusive sovereign rights to explore and exploit natural resources in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea, a part of the South China Sea.

"If China can possess the South China Sea, then the Philippines cannot exercise its exclusive sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea. Under UNCLOS, there is also freedom of navigation and overflight in the EEZs for all nations," Carpio said.

Carpio is a candidate for the next Supreme Court chief justice to succeed Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, who retired last month.

He has repeatedly urged the Duterte administration to take a tougher stance in asserting the country's maritime claims, especially following an international court's 2016 ruling finding "no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’". —NB, GMA News