PHL hails 2016 arbitral award as a “milestone in corpus of int’l law” in 5th anniversary of its issuance

In this undated handout photo received from the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on April 25, 2021, Coast Guard personnel conduct maritime exercise near Thitu island in the disputed South China Sea. (Photo by Handout / PCG/ AFP/

(Eagle News) — The Philippines hailed the award on the South China Sea arbitration as a “milestone in the corpus of international law,” as it celebrates the fifth anniversary of its issuance in favor of the Southeast Asian country.

In a statement, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said the award issued by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016, after all, “settled the status of historic rights and maritime entitlements” in the South China Sea.

It “declared as without legal effect claims that exceed geographic and substantive limits of maritime entitlements” under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and “dashed among others a nine-dash line and any expectation that possession is 9/10 of the law,” Locsin said.

Besides, the award, Locsin said, was “available to other countries with the same problematic maritime features as ours” and “benefits the world across the board.”

“It puts one issue out of the way of conflict because there is nothing there taken by force that results in any gain in law,” he said.

The DFA chief reiterated that the award was “final,” and that the Philippines “firmly” rejects “attempts to undermine it, nay, even erase it from law, history and our collective memories.”

“The present that we need and the future that we want is a peaceful South China Sea. The Philippines is committed to this for as long as it exists. For as long as nations abide by the rule of law and not of military might, the award is the north star that will keep us on course in the present, and that will point us back in the right direction in the future should we, in a moment of weakness and inaction, lose our way,” he said.

President Rodrigo Duterte has stood by the arbitral award that invalidated China’s nine-dash line delineating what it said were its claims over most of the South China Sea, even as he refused to raise this before China upon assumption of office.

In 2019, the President finally raised the issue before China’s President Xi Jinping in a visit to Beijing.

Xi, however, “reiterated his government’s position of not recognizing the arbitral ruling as well as not budging from its position,” then-Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said.

In the end, Panelo said the two agreed to work  together “on the basis of mutual trust and good faith, to manage the South China Sea issue, and to continue to dialogue peacefully in resolving the conflict.”