Marcoleta is right, and our columnists are wrong on the EEZ
TWO of my colleagues in this paper launched a barrage of ridicule against Sen. Rodante Marcoleta for questioning the legal validity of what the government loosely calls the “West Philippine Sea.” In doing so, they managed to demonstrate their ignorance of the issue — while the senator they mocked was, on the law, entirely correct. The pontifications of these two demonstrate again the truth of that adage, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
What made their attacks particularly inappropriate was their reliance on ad hominem arguments rather than legal text. Marcoleta happens to be one of the most informed members of Congress on the South China Sea dispute. That fact is inconvenient to those who prefer slogans to statutes, but it does not disappear just because they wish it away. It is also striking that these commentators seem not to read my over 50 columns that have, for years now, dismantled the same misconceptions they continue to recycle.
One of them, Antonio Contreras, who is a board member of government propaganda outfit, wrote that under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), an exclusive economic zone “extends 200 nautical miles from a coastal state’s baselines” and is therefore a “mechanical, rule-based entitlement.” Another, Marlen Ronquillo, claimed that Philippine laws have already codified a specific area called the West Philippine Sea and that “official maps have been drawn to reflect this, citing the Philippine Maritime Zones Act of 2024 (Republic Act 12064).”
Both assertions collapse the moment one actually reads the law.
Article 57 of Unclos — the provision that defines the EEZ — states: “The exclusive economic zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.” The emphasis matters. The phrase “shall not extend beyond” sets a maximum limit, not an automatic entitlement.
Republic Act 12064 uses nearly identical language. Section 7 provides that the EEZ of the Philippines refers to waters “up to two hundred (200) nautical miles from the baselines.” Again, the statute describes a ceiling, not a self-executing claim.
Illiterate
To describe the EEZ’s determination as “mechanical” is therefore legally illiterate. Unclos does not say that a coastal state automatically has its EEZ within 200 nautical miles. It says only that no EEZ may go beyond that distance. A state must still define its EEZ — through legislation, precise geodetic coordinates, and notification to the United Nations — and must do so consistent with the rights of neighboring states.
Contreras arrogantly claims: “We know where our (EEZ) is. We have always known.” OK, let’s test if he really knows. The following points with these geographical coordinates are well within 200 nautical miles from our baselines, from which the breadth of our EEZ is determined: (1) 20°, 24’ N, 121°, 01’ E (2) 7° 57’ N, 114° 54’ E; (3) 5° 25’ N, 116° 49 E. Are they within our EEZ?
No. While these are within the 200-NM theoretical EEZ, the first is already the Taiwan mainland, the second is in Sabah province, and the third is Malaysia, which has declared it as part of its own EEZ.
Image 1 is from former justice Antonio Carpio’s e-book, which also makes the huge mistake of “mechanical” entitlement in drawing our EEZ. Note that the EEZ, if “mechanically” drawn as 200 nautical miles from our baselines, encompasses two-thirds of Taiwan and almost the whole of Malaysia’s Sabah territory. Not shown in the map is that our theoretical EEZ overlaps with the EEZs of Malaysia, Vietnam, and China.
Ronquillo insists that Philippine EEZ maps already exist and that official maps showing this have already been issued. This writer really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
There are no official maps yet showing our EEZ. I know this because in January 2021 I filed a freedom-of-information request with the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (Namria), asking for the official map of the Philippines’ EEZ, with precise geographical coordinates. The request was denied. Namria replied that it was still awaiting the passage of the Maritime Zones bill, which would serve as the legal basis for preparing such a map.
In July that year, I filed another FOI request, which was also denied, Namria this time saying in its July 19 letter that it was invoking “exceptions to the right of access to information due to national security, defense or international relations since interagency consultations are still ongoing at this time.” Where else in the world is a nation’s official map a matter of national security?
Tulfo
I don’t think Namria has already finalized a map. To be sure, I requested Sen. Erwin Tulfo, the new chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations committee, to demand such a map from Namria. I hope he does.
There are compelling reasons for Namria’s refusal. The banal reason is that it would be costly to determine exactly where the 200-km limits are, and Namria apparently wasn’t given a budget for this. More importantly though, if the Philippines were to draw a full 200-nautical-mile EEZ from all its baselines, that claim would inevitably overlap with the EEZs and even the mainlands of Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and Taiwan.
Unclos anticipates precisely this problem with its Article 74 providing: “The delimitation of the exclusive economic zone between States with opposite or adjacent coasts shall be effected by agreement on the basis of international law, as referred to in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, in order to achieve an equitable solution.”
Section 12 of RA 12064 mirrors the convention. Where maritime zones overlap, boundaries “shall be determined by agreement” in accordance with international law.
Until such agreements are reached, we can’t claim our EEZ emanating from the Western side of the archipelaego, and therefore no West Philippine Sea, which is defined as mainly our EEZ in that area. There is only overlap — and with it, a duty to negotiate, not to posture.
We have a precedent for negotiations, though. Our EEZ boundary with Indonesia was not asserted by rhetoric or by drawing lines on a map in Manila. It was negotiated over nearly two decades, signed in 2014, and ratified by the Senate in 2019. The resulting treaty contains exact geodetic coordinates where the Philippine EEZ ends and that of Indonesia begins. This is how a legitimate EEZ looks like in law (see image 2).
The sobering lesson is that if it took 20 years to reach agreement with friendly Indonesia; delimitation with Vietnam, Malaysia or China will not be quick — or easy. Vietnam and Malaysia have already declared their EEZ limits, and these overlap with what the Philippines might wish to claim. That is precisely why caution, not chest-thumping, is required.
If you think President Aquino’s renaming of part of the South China Sea as nationalistic, the fact that North Korea also did a similar thing and failed may sober you up.
North Korea in 1992 renamed the Sea of Japan, which lies between the two countries’ landmasses, to the new name “Korean East Sea.”
But at least North Korea recognized international convention and submitted arguments and evidence to the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) for such a demand, arguing the name was the imposition of imperialist Japan in the pre-war era when Korea was under its colonial rule. (The IHO consists of 94 nations, which determines through consensus the names of the world’s seas and oceans.)
Neither Aquino nor succeeding presidents have submitted such a request to the IHO, and there is no official recognition of the term “West Philippine Sea” from any international body. It exists only in our two columnists’ minds, in that of our three Senate stooges of US imperialism.
The name “South China Sea” was not given by the Chinese but by Europeans starting in the 16th century and recognized as such over the centuries by the world’s nations.
The South China Sea is defined with precision by geographic coordinates by the International Hydrological Organization (Limits of Oceans and Seas, Special Publication No. 28, 2002). The 2002 draft of the IHO’s publication Limits of Oceans and Seas, its official catalogue of such bodies’ names and locations, defines parts of the South China Sea borders as the coastlines of the Philippine archipelago (image 3), and there is no reference at all in the IHO website nor publications of a Philippine request to change these boundaries.
This is why Marcoleta is right to ask uncomfortable questions. The law on the EEZ is not a slogan, not a map label, and not a talking point. It is a regime of limits, overlaps and negotiated boundaries. Pretending otherwise does not strengthen our position. It weakens it.
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The post Marcoleta is right, and our columnists are wrong on the EEZ first appeared on Rigoberto Tiglao.
Marcoleta is right, and our columnists are wrong on the EEZ
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