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Bong Go: Duterte pitched SCS Code of Conduct to Chinese Communist Party officials
President Rodrigo Duterte pushed for a new Code of Conduct in the South China Sea during a meeting with officials of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Malacañang on Monday night, Senator Bong Go said Tuesday.
“The President stressed the need to fast-track the ASEAN-China Code of Conduct in the South China Sea so that everybody will be put at ease…everyone would know what routes to follow, and what alleys to avoid,” Go, who was in the same meeting in his capacity as a member of the Duterte-chaired ruling party PDP Laban, told reporters.
The CPC delegation was led by Chongqing party chief Chen Min'er, a protégé of Chinese President Xi Jinping and a member of the 25-strong Politburo, the CPC’s top decision-making body.
Go, however, did not say if such a Code of Conduct would be binding or punitive.
Calls for drafting a new Code of Conduct have intensified after a Chinese vessel rammed the fishing boat Gem-Vir 1 off Recto Bank on June 9. It then left without rescuing the sinking boat's 22 Filipino fishermen, who had to fend for themselves in the open sea for hours.
Fortunately for the Filipinos, a Vietnamese fishing boat happened to be in the area and its crew members were able to assist the Filipinos back to safety.
Duterte dismissed the incident as a “little maritime accident.”
Last week, the President also said he will "ignore" the country’s unprecedented victory in the Hague—a ruling which rejected China's massive claim over the entire South China Sea and declared the Spratly Islands, as well as the Panganiban (Mischief) Reef, Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal and Recto (Reed) Bank are all within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone (EEZ)—in favor of "economic activity" with the Chinese.
ASEAN and China have a standing Declaration of Conduct in the South China Sea inked in 2002 which states that parties should “undertake to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.”
The ASEAN-DOC, however, is a non-binding agreement. — BM, GMA News
