(Eagle News) — Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Wednesday said he would also assign Philippine names to the features at the Philippine Rise that were named by China.
“We will still discuss this with the National Security Adviser and other Cabinet members,” he said.
Lorenzana issued the brief statement after the Palace condemned China’s move to name the five undersea features.
In a Facebook post, 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 the 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.”
Earlier, President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated that the Philippine Rise–formerly named Benham Rise–was the Philippines’.
