“Iba naman yung exercising sovereign rights,” he says
(Eagle News) — Unlike some of his colleagues, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III sees nothing wrong with China’s naming of five undersea features at Philippine Rise.
“Without reading the convention or the treaty, or the rules governing the name, common sense tells me that no one has a monopoly of the power or the right to name features on earth. Wala naman pong ganun,” he said on Wednesday.
According to Pimentel, what China did was “only to name.”
“Iba naman yung exercising sovereign rights. Even sovereign rights do not mean sovereignty,” he said.
“Una sa lahat, Benham Rise, sinong nagpangalan niyan…? Nagalit ba tayo noong Amerikano (ang nag) name niyan? Nagalit ba tayo? Ngayon, Chinese name, allergic tayo?” he asked.
Pimentel said the Philippines should “just follow procedures.”
“Ngayon kung naunahan tayo to name something, then there must be a procedure how to rename something so what’s the problem?” he said.
Earlier, Senators Antonio Trillanes IV and JV Ejercito urged the Philippine government to file a diplomatic protest against China.
Senator Panfilo Lacson also aired his concerns over China’s move to rename the five undersea features.
Jay Batongbacal, an associate professor at the University of the Philippines College of Law and director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said these features were named the “Jinghao and Tianbao Seamounts located some 70 nautical miles east of Cagayan; the Haidonquing Seamount further east at 190 nautical miles; and the Cuiqiao Hill and Jujiu Seamount that form the central peaks of the Philippine Rise undersea geological province itself.”
He said all were “within 200 nautical miles of the east coast of Luzon, not in the region of the extended continental shelf but well within the “legal” continental shelf,” or “within 200 nautical miles, where the coastal State’s rights are ipso facto and ab initio and do not need to undergo a claim process.”
President Rodrigo Duterte has already said that the Philippine Rise–formerly named Benham Rise–was the Philippines’.
