Atienza defends baselines bill

Environment Secretary Lito Atienza defended yesterday the country’s position excluding the Kalayaan Island Group from the country’s territorial boundaries in the 2009 Baselines Bill to be approved by Congress next week.

Atienza said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, through its attached agency the National Mapping Resource and Information Agency (NAMRIA), submitted four options to the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs (CMOA) but recommended the second option that excludes the contentious islands.

He said in option 1, the main archipelago and Scarborough Shoal are enclosed by the baselines while the KIG is classified under the regime of islands.

In option 2, only the main archipelago is enclosed by the baselines while KIG and Scarborough Shoal are classified under the regime of islands.

In option 3, the main archipelago and KIG are enclosed by the baselines while Scarborough Shoal is classified under the regime of islands, and in option 4, the main archipelago, KIG and Scarborough Shoal are enclosed by the baselines, Atienza said.

“Option 2 is the best option for the government to take, considering that the overlapping claims in the South China Sea have been a long-standing source of friction between us and our neighboring countries.”

He explained that the non-inclusion of the contentious islands does not mean that we are abandoning the claim over the area, but merely “strategizing” not only to protect the country from any international conflict but also to gain from the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) providing an extended continental shelf and economic zone.

“Mere physical separation does not affect the status of sovereignty of the state over the separate territories. For example, the State of Alaska is separated from the mainland United States by Canada, in the same manner that the State of Hawaii is separated from the mainland by the Pacific Ocean; Australia has island territories in the Indian Ocean; New Zealand has separate small island territories in the South Pacific; and so on. None of these states will ever need to enclose all of their land territories in a single set of baselines,” Atienza said.

He said the establishment of archipelagic baselines around the country is an essential element for the international community to recognize and respect the Philippines’ exercise of sovereignty and jurisdiction over its maritime zones.

One important maritime zone is the extended continental shelf (ECS), which goes beyond 200 nautical miles in some areas.

The Philippines must submit data and information to the Commission on Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCs) regarding such areas on or before May 13.

Baselines are reference lines drawn by a coastal or archipelagic state using different methods. They are used to measure the breadth of the territorial sea (12M), contiguous zone (24M), EEZ (200M), continental shelf (200M) and extended continental shelf (up to 350M).

The waters enclosed by the baselines are called archipelagic waters over which an archipelagic state exercises sovereignty.

“The archipelagic baselines method is most applicable and advantageous to an archipelago such as the Philippines. Otherwise, to use either the normal or straight baseline methods, which are primarily designed for coastal states, would effectively waive our status as an archipelagic state and lose much of the archipelagic waters as defined above,” Atienza said.

Other countries like China, Vietnam, and Malaysia have laid claim to the Spratly Islands, with the Chinese establishing their presence in the early 1990s with a fortification on Mischief Reef, which is located close to the center of the island group occupied by the Philippines.