EDITORIAL
After several years of rambunctious noises and legal maneuvers at the Permanent Tribunal for Arbitration tribunal, Atin Ito and other photo ops, those who advocate for a more decisive action on the Philippine claim to that part of the South China Sea that they call the "West Philippine Sea" (WPS) will perhaps be surprised by this.
It is only on June 14, 2024 that DFA Assistant Secretary for Maritime and Ocean Affairs Marshall Louis Alferez and Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN in New York Ambassador Antonio Lagdameo submitted to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf the Philippines' registration of its extended continental shelf in the Western Palawan region in the WPS.
The DFA said the submission was made at the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) through the Philippine Mission to the UN in New York on June 14.
This is the second time the Philippines registered an ECS entitlement. In 2012, the CLCS validated its partial submission on the Philippine Rise (Benham Rise), resulting in an additional 135,506 square kilometers of seabed area for the country.
We note that these submissions are necessary for the Philippines' declaration of its maritime entitlements under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and as a way to show our commitment to the responsible application of its processes.
This would also help secure the Philippines’ sovereign rights and maritime jurisdictions in the West Philippine Sea, Alferez said, noting that the 2016 Arbitral Ruling confirmed the country’s maritime entitlements and rejected those that exceeded geographic and substantive limits under UNCLOS.
“The seabed and the subsoil extending from our archipelago up to the maximum extent allowed by UNCLOS hold significant potential resources that will benefit our nation and our people for generations to come. Today, we secure our future by making a manifestation of our exclusive right to explore and exploit natural resources in our ECS entitlement,” the DFA said.
Alferez, meanwhile, clarified that the submission does not prejudice discussions with relevant coastal States that may have legitimate ECS claims measured from their respective lawful baselines under UNCLOS.
“We consider our submission as a step in discussing delimitation matters and other forms of cooperation moving forward. What is important is the Philippines puts on record the maximum extent of our entitlement,” he said.
Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN in New York Ambassador Antonio Lagdameo has also expressed optimism this submission would reinvigorate the efforts of States “to demonstrate their readiness to pursue UNCLOS processes in the determination of maritime entitlements and promote a rules-based international order.”
In its Philippine Rise submission in 2009, the country stated that it reserved the right to make submissions in other areas in the future.
Under Article 76 of the UNCLOS, a coastal State such as the Philippines is entitled to establish the outer limits of its continental shelf comprising the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas extending beyond 200 nautical miles (NM) but not to exceed 350 NM from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.
The National Mapping and Resource Information Agency (NAMRIA) led the Extended Continental Shelf Technical Working Group (ECS-TWG) that worked on the submission for more than a decade and a half.