Probe on RP-Indon island row pushed

Sen. Manuel Villar asked the Senate yesterday to investigate the alleged negligence of government officials in the loss of three islands in southern Mindanao to Indonesia.

Villar, chairman of the Senate committee on foreign relations, said the islands of Palmas, Marore and Merampit have "strategic, political and economic importance to the Philippines."

"The islands (are a) critical spawning area and migration corridor of highly migratory fish species like the yellowfin tuna. The area has also been tagged as a large marine ecosystem with vital environmental importance," he said.

Indonesia embarked on a $40-million hydrographic survey in 1994 to chart new baselines and announced it would redraw its maritime borders using the three islands as reference points, according to Villar.

He said that Indonesia informed the Philippine government that it was claiming the three islands as its own during the RP-Indonesia joint commission on bilateral cooperation meeting in December 2002.

According to Villar, former Maritime and Ocean Affairs Center executive director Hermes Dorado said the government was negligent in its border negotiations with Indonesia, and did not undertake its own survey to assert its sovereignty on the three islands.

"Sociologists and international law experts have declared that the Philippines’ continuous administrative control of Palmas, Marore and Merampit is well-grounded and cannot be easily controverted," Villar said.

He noted that Palmas island, located only 47 nautical miles east-northeast of Sarangani island, lies within the boundaries of the Philippines as defined by the 1898 Treaty of Paris established between Spain and the United States.

The 1899 Atlas de Filipinas, according to Villar, shows that the islands of Marore and Merampit historically belong to the Philippines but were excluded in the boundaries established by the 1898 Treaty of Paris.

"An internationally funded study on the population of (the) three islands revealed that Filipinos who have intermarried with Indonesians have always been occupying the three islands," he said.

Villar said that international law professor Harry Roque told him that the Huber decision on the Palmas island arbitration case cannot be binding on the Philippine government, citing legal principles on state succession. – Jose Rodel Clapano