MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte is set to visit the Philippine Rise (Benham Rise) next week to assert the country’s sovereign rights over the potentially resource-rich undersea plateau off Luzon coast, a few months after Chinese oceanographers surveyed the area.
“Next week, I’m going to the Benham Rise. And I will make a statement that nobody but nobody owns this place including the continental shelf, the underground landmass that extends under the sea,” Duterte said in a speech last Thursday.
“And if extends to San Francisco Bay, San Francisco Bay is a property of the Republic of the Philippines,” the firebrand leader quipped.
In 2012, the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf approved the Philippines’ undisputed claim to the vast offshore region.
Duterte had signed an Executive Order officially renaming Benham Rise to “Philippine Rise” following reports that Chinese research vessels were spotted casing the area in 2016.
Early this year, the Philippine Rise grabbed the headlines after the Philippine government allowed a group from Beijing to conduct scientific research in the waters.
China later proposed names for the undersea features on the area, which the Philippines vehemently rejected.
Although China has made no claim to the Philippine Rise, Filipino officials are suspicious toward China’s intentions, as the two countries continue to spar over the South China Sea.
Duterte had banned all foreign scientific research at the Philippine Rise and ordered the navy to chase away unauthorized ships.
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