EDITORIAL — Destroying the reefs

For many years now, Filipinos have been raising concern over the environmental destruction from China’s artificial island-building in the South China Sea. Always, what has been lacking is the lack of official support for the complaints.

In March 2019, retired Philippine government officials filed a complaint before the International Criminal Court or ICC against Chinese President Xi Jinping over his country’s “environmentally destructive and illegal reclamations and artificial island-building activities” in the West Philippine Sea.

Along with the swarming of Chinese militia vessels and prevention of Filipinos from fishing within sovereign waters, the acts constituted crimes against humanity, according to the complainants – the late foreign secretary Albert del Rosario and former ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.

Instead of supporting the initiative, then president Rodrigo Duterte pursued his lovefest with Beijing, and later pulled out the Philippines from the ICC after it accepted complaints against him for possible crimes against humanity in connection with his crackdown on illegal drugs.

In December 2019, the ICC junked the complaint against Xi, citing lack of jurisdiction because China is not a party to the Rome Statute. In September 2020, however, retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio joined the complainants to revive the case. Along with Xi, those named in the complaint were Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and former Chinese ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua as well as senior executives of state-run China Communications Construction Co.

CCCC and its subsidiaries have been blacklisted by the United States for their role in artificial island-building in the South China Sea. The US embassy recently raised alarm over the involvement of the CCCC group in commercial reclamation projects in Manila Bay.

Over the weekend, the Armed Forces of the Philippines revealed the discovery of extensive damage to corals in a reef in the West Philippine Sea. Vice Adm. Alberto Carlos, chief of the AFP’s Western Command based in Palawan, said the corals are gone from Rozul Reef following the swarming of Chinese vessels in the area. “There’s nothing left, they are destroyed and only debris was there,” Carlos said, citing the report of divers deployed to the reef by WesCom.

Coral reefs are spawning grounds for marine life and critical in maintaining marine biodiversity. Over the past decades, the Philippines has lost much of its extensive reef network to foreign poachers, destructive fishing methods and reclamation activities. China has turned Panganiban or Mischief Reef, just 130 nautical miles west of Palawan, into an artificial island housing a military outpost.

Protecting marine biodiversity is a concern not just of the Philippines but of the world. The country can mobilize international support to stop massive environmental destruction in the South China Sea.