Cha-cha panel chair: New Charter to bolster West PH Sea claims

Congress may revise the Constitution to bolster the country’s stand on its maritime claims in the South China Sea, the chairman of the House of Representatives’ constitutional amendments committee said on Monday.

Southern Leyte Rep. Roger Mercado said the United Nations-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration’s July 2016 ruling invalidating China’s sweeping claims under the so-called “nine-dash line” would be taken into account when Congress convenes into a constituent assembly.

“We shall retain the archipelagic theory but we should now take note of the decision of the international tribunal – how we can implement it so that it will be respected by other countries,” Mercado said.

The clause on the country’s national territory is one of the provisions in the 1987 Constitutions which may be amended by congressmen.

Although the present delineation will be the same, Mercado said the amended Constitution should provide a stronger stance on the protection of the country’s territory.

“Basically, boundaries will be the same. However, we have to be clear on how we can protect the sovereign territory of our country,” Mercado said.

“It’s really about time that we put that in our Constitution. They should respect it, no matter how strong they are compared to us, because we have rights too,” he added.

It may be recalled that the landmark PCA ruling invalidated China’s so-called “nine-dash line” surrounding much of the South China Sea and overlapping with the exclusive economic zones of Spratly Islands claimants including the Philippines.

In a reversal of the Aquino administration’s move to hale China to arbitration, the Duterte administration has shied away from bringing up the tribunal victory apparently to avoid provoking the neighboring economic and military giant. Instead, the Duterte administration chose a tack of economic cooperation by way of borrowing loans for its big-ticket infrastructure projects.

Article I of the Constitution currently defines the national territory as “compris[ing] the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial, and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas.”

Article XII, Section 2, meanwhile, directs the State to “to protect the nation’s marine wealth in its archipelagic waters, territorial sea, and exclusive economic zone, and reserve its use and enjoyment exclusively to Filipino citizens.”

Mercado said in a press briefing that the committee would likely finalize and identify this Tuesday the other specific provisions in the current Constitution which the constituent assembly would amend in a shift to a federal system of government.

The Tuesday schedule was set because the House plenary expected to approve the resolution convening Congress into a constituent assembly on Monday evening, since debates are already halfway done.

Mercado clarified that while there was no working draft of the federal Constitution and the congressmen would amend the provisions on a per-line basis, the draft charters proposed by the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) and by the tandem of Deputy Majority Leader Aurelio Gonzales and Deputy Minority Leader Eugene de Vera would be taken into consideration.

“All of these are still proposals which will have to be deliberated in our constituent assembly and approved by the House and after that it will be sent or through our people through plebiscite or referendum,” he said.

Federalism would see the devolution of national government responsibilities over agriculture, infrastructure, environmental protection, education and health to proposed states.