Ex-SolGen slams Carpio’s ‘falsehoods,’ denies factions in Aquino admin in arbitration vs. China

Former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay slammed retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio for claiming that there were factions between advisers of former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III in the 2013 arbitration case against China, which led to the landmark victory for the Philippines.

In a five-page response to Carpio’s Philippine Daily Inquirer column, Hilbay said he read the former SC justice’s piece with “amusement” and “disappointment” as he pointed out the “falsehoods” and “inaccuracies” in the former magistrate’s claims.

In his column, Carpio bared that there was one faction against the arbitration case and one in favor of it.

“These two factions fought from the beginning to the end,” the former SC justice said.

The former magistrate also claimed that the two factions, composed of Aquino’s closest advisers, were “bitterly divided” and “fought from the beginning to the end.”

With this, Hilbay said that Carpio was merely an “observer” and had “no skin in the game” as far as the arbitration case is concerned.

Part of the Philippine delegation, both Hilbay and Carpio attended the arbitration proceedings in the Hague in 2015.

For the former Solicitor General, Carpio’s views that there were two single-minded factions within the Philippine arbitration team were merely that of an “outsider, which naturally misses out on the nuanced interplay among the actual players in the game.”

“The reality is that the players were independent republics of various sizes, with interests and goals of their own. Some of them had actual skin in the game,” Hilbay said.

Itu Alba issue

Hilbay also took the opportunity to clarify the issue about Itu Alba, the largest naturally occurring feature in the disputed Spratly Group of Islands, over which - still according to Carpio - the alleged two factions in the Philippine arbitration team “fought again.”

“When Paul Reichler recommended the amendment of our Statement of Claim to include the status of Itu Aba as one of the issues to be resolved by the arbitral tribunal, the two factions fought again,” the former magistrate said.

Reichler is an American lawyer who served as the Philippines' lead counsel in the arbitration case.

Carpio added that then Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario arranged for Reichler and his team to meet Aquino in Malacañang “so our lawyers could explain to the President the need to amend our Statement of Claim.”

“One faction wanted the 15 paragraphs in the Memorial explaining the status of Itu Aba to be deleted, while Secretary del Rosario insisted on the retention of the 15 paragraphs. I met with then Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and explained to her why the 15 paragraphs should be retained. I gave her a two-page brief on the matter to give to President Aquino, which she did. When President Aquino called the two factions to a meeting, he announced his decision — the 15 paragraphs would remain in the Memorial,” Carpio said.

Hilbay, however, said that the Itu Albu issue was merely a “proxy” for the debate over joint development with China as a compromise should the Philippines lose the Itu Alba issue.

“I rejected all these proposals for a compromise… I was against joint development because it is impermissible as a matter of constitutional law. With specific reference to China, we simply can’t enter into an economic compromise with a country that doesn’t respect our full sovereign rights,” the former Solicitor General said. -MDM, GMA News