Enrile wants House to adopt Senate version of baselines bill

Senate leaders pushed for their version of the measure excluding the Kalayaan Island Group and Scarborough Shoal from the country’s archipelagic baselines.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said Congress should adopt the Senate’s version defining the country’s territorial baselines since it complies with the requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Enrile said the Senate is prepared to argue its point before the bicameral conference committee meeting with the House of Representatives.

“We will discuss in the bicameral conference as to which version should be used to become the law of the land,” Enrile said.

Enrile explained the Senate baselines bill is not ruling out Kalayaan and Scarborough as part of the Philippine territory.

“There are also other (country) claimants and we have to deal with that problem both from the viewpoint of our internal law which is disputed by other countries and from the viewpoint of the international law which they will recognize based on a regime of islands,” Enrile said.

Besides the Philippines, the Kalayaan islands and Scarborough Shoal are being claimed as part of the Spratly group of islands by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. 

In the Senate version of the bill, the Kalayaan and Scarborough islands are described as a “regime of islands.”

“We do not have the battleships and squadrons to enforce our claim of absolute entitlement over these islands,” Enrile pointed out.

He stressed that “the Senate version is the more realistic approach to the problem.”

“We all agreed that we consider Kalayaan as ours. All Filipinos, we agree on that but it is a question of legal engineering. How do you approach the problem in relation to the claims of other countries?” Enrile asked.

Santiago, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, said the House version of the baselines bill was “fatally flawed” and “a potential diplomatic disaster.”

Santiago and Enrile shared the view that it would be futile to include the KIG or Spratly islands inside the archipelagic baseline since several claimant countries already occupy the islands.

“It defies reality when a state claims sovereignty over islands which are in the physical possession of other states,” she said.

Santiago, however, declined to lead the Senate contingent at the bicameral committee, saying she is suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome.

She endorsed Enrile to head the panel to argue the Senate proposal.

“Since the House panel will be headed by no less than Speaker (Prospero) Nograles, it is only appropriate that the Senate panel should be headed by the Senate President,” she said.

Santiago said she had the “fullest confidence in the analytical judgments” of both Nograles and Enrile over the issue.

“It is really a very simple choice. We have to scale down without surrendering our territorial claims. The unacceptable choice is to claim as much territory as we want, alienate the rest of the international community, and operate as a pariah in international law,” she said.

Under UNCLOS, an archipelago country like the Philippines is allowed to draw straight baselines from the outermost points of the outermost islands, provided that the baselines adhere to the natural configuration of the archipelago.

A sellout

Former Philippine Ambassador to the United Nations Lauro Baja said the baselines bill, which excludes the Kalayaan and the Scarborough Shoal, does not promote the country’s territorial interests.

“(It) does not protect or promote our national interests. Kalayaan is already ours by virtue of our laws and we have military and civilian units there,” Baja said.

Baja explained that in considering bilateral relations to justify the exclusion, it must also consider the concerns of national interest and every nation understands and acts in pursuance of this cardinal rule.       

“Moreover, the issue is not acquisition of territory – it is ours already – but rather the possible loss of our territory by excluding Kalayaan from our baselines. At the very least, exclusion diminishes our claim and sends wrong signals to other claimants,” he added.       

Baja, a former member of the Philippine Delegation to the UNCLOS, said the provision in the bill “that Kalayaan and Scarborough Shoal remain subject to the sovereignty and territorial claim of the Philippines” does not cure the negative implications of the exclusion.       

He also stressed the concept of “regime of islands” as pushed by the Senate is one of the more debatable and controversial concepts in UNCLOS.

“That is why only one article is devoted to it in the (UNCLOS) convention. By opting for this concept, we embrace all the reservations about the regime,” Baja pointed out.       

Baja called on Congress to include Kalayaan and Scarborough Shoal in drawing the country’s baselines.

He said more aggressive and effective Philippine diplomacy should be made to defend and advance the country’s position over the claims.

“Our institutions, like Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the House of Representatives, flip-flopped on this issue (and it) speaks volumes of our character as a nation and as a people,” he said.      

In March, China expressed serious concern about the bill filed in the House defining Philippine territory that included the disputed Spratly Islands.

Beijing did not file a diplomatic protest to block the passage of the proposed measure but a senior DFA official said the Philippine Embassy in Beijing received a position paper from China’s Foreign Ministry expressing their concerns.

Beijing was particularly concerned about the inclusion of the Kalayaan Island Group in the Spratlys.

The inclusion of the disputed areas, the DFA official said, would violate the 2002 Declaration of Code of Conduct to reduce tensions and improve the general political climate in the South China Sea.

The DFA did not object to the passage of House Bill 3216 that cites the importance of defining the baseline.

The official, who requested anonymity, said the DFA had not made a position against the bill pending in Congress.    – With Pia Lee-Brago