Carpio hopes Duterte stand on arbitral award becomes policy 'across all levels'

Retired Supreme Court (SC) senior associate justice Antonio Carpio on Wednesday said he hopes President Rodrigo Duterte's invocation of the arbitral ruling invalidating China's massive claims to the South China Sea becomes Philippine policy "across all levels."

Carpio, who has repeatedly pressed the Duterte administration to assert the landmark decision, said he "commends" the president's "strong stand" before the United Nations General Assembly. 

In his first speech before the body, Duterte said that the arbitral award "is now part of international law, beyond compromise and beyond the reach of passing governments to dilute, diminish or abandon." 

"We firmly reject attempts to undermine it," said Duterte, who had set aside the ruling earlier in his presidency. 

"It is heartening that President Duterte has welcomed 'the increasing number of states that have come in support of the award,'" Carpio said in a statement. 

"I fervently hope that this is the policy that the Duterte administration will implement across all levels – in the protection of our exclusive economic zone in the West Philippines Sea, in the negotiations for the Code of Conduct, and in gathering the support of the international community for the enforcement of the arbitral award," the retired magistrate said. 

Carpio is a leading expert on and advocate for the Philippines' maritime entitlements. 

He was part of the legal team that brought the Philippines' case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which in 2016 handed down the award that China continues to disregard to this day.   

He has often urged the government to assert the arbitral ruling amid China's incursions into the West Philippine Sea, a part of the vast South China Sea that is included in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. 

Former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario also welcomed Duterte's declaration before the UN. 

“The next step is for our president and his administration to put in reality the invocation of the arbitral award,” Del Rosario said. —KG, GMA News