Let us name names to protect our territorial waters and EEZ!
by Jose Rizal M. Reyes / poet-philosopher / July 15, 2016 updated July 18
“Carpio: West Philippine Sea is different from South China Sea”
— news headline
The view expressed by Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio concerning the extent or coverage of the West Philippine Sea is very close to the kind of thinking we have developed and crystallized in our Facebook-based patriotic circles. It is especially compatible with the views expressed by myself and our good friend Emmanuel Santos Esber, a seaman by profession and a patriot by vocation.
Said Justice Carpio during a recent interview by GMA News: “West Philippine Sea does not cover the entire South China Sea. West Philippine Sea is referring to waters within our jurisdiction consisting of our territorial sea and exclusive economic zone.”
If the view of Justice Carpio is adopted, this means that the West Philippine Sea is but the eastern portion, the portion close to the Philippines, of what is commonly referred to as of now as South China Sea. Interestingly, the whole China Sea itself is merely a small marginal part of the mighty Pacific Ocean whose wavy empire stretches from the shores of Asia and Australia to the coastlines of the Americas and touches with cool caress the Arctic and some say also the Antarctic.
It may be enlightening to check out if the differentiation made by Justice Carpio is in line with the administrative order that brought forth the name “West Philippine Sea”. I am referring to Administrative Order No. 29, Series of 2012 signed by then Philippine president Benigno Aquino III on September 5, 2012. Section 1 of the said administrative order states that:
“The maritime areas on the western side of the Philippine archipelago are hereby named as the West Philippine Sea. These areas include the Luzon Sea as well as the waters around, within and adjacent to the Kalayaan Island Group and Bajo De Masinloc, also known as Scarborough Shoal.”
It may be observed that the wording does not expressly say that West Philippine Sea is a replacement, substitute or alternative name for South China Sea. Neither does it explicitly define West Philippine Sea as being composed of the Philippines’ 12-mile territorial waters and 200-mile exclusive economic zone (as provided for under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS) alluded to by Justice Carpio. It merely says that West Philippine Sea is “the maritime areas on the western side of the Philippine archipelago” including “the Luzon Sea as well as the waters around, within and adjacent to the Kalayaan Island Group and Bajo De Masinloc, also known as Scarborough Shoal.”
What else it covers has not been expressly and precisely defined or delineated. Maybe it was intentionally worded in a vague way for some tactical purpose or strategic reason — say, for the sake of flexibility, hedging, caution, evasiveness or squid tactic.
The vague and imprecise definition allowed the term West Philippine Sea to be used as an alternative name for South China Sea. In fact, that is the sense by which many people use and understand the term. And so whenever foreign officials — say of the United States or of India — used the term West Philippine Sea instead of South China Sea, it was usually taken as an expression of support for the Philippine cause. The same equivalency in meaning can also be gleaned from the complete name of our Facebook group — “Southeast Asian Sea (aka South China Sea and West Philippine Sea)”.
Nevertheless, the aforesaid vagueness and imprecision allows also the admissibility of the Carpio definition. Indeed, if the Carpio definition was not the intended meaning, then the meaning of the term West Philippine Sea should be modified — preferably in a legal or official way — so it would conform to the differentiation made by Justice Carpio. As I mentioned at the outset, this differentiation jibes with the thinking that we in the patriotic circles have developed and crystallized regarding how that sea out there should be called or referred to. That is why we support it.
Now, while the administrative order that named the West Philippine Sea did not clearly define its coverage the way Justice Carpio did, the same administrative order was nonetheless explicitly premised on three legal grounds that strongly resonate with the Carpio definition and differentiation, to wit:
✿ Presidential Decree No. 1599 (1978) which established the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Philippines extending to 200 nautical miles from the baselines of the Philippine archipelago;
✿ Republic Act No. 9522 (2009), or the Baselines Law, which specifically defined and described the baselines of the Philippine archipelago; and
✿ principles of international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
The need to name or rename the sea west of the Philippines is of grave importance because China is using the name South China Sea as proof of ownership and as a psychological weapon to push forward their ox-tongue or 9-dash-line territorial claims (which was rejected by the UN Arbitral Tribunal just a few days ago for being without legal basis).
Yet, in a mixture of cleverness and shamelessness, China is at the same time asserting that the Indian Ocean cannot be India’s backyard. Why, haven’t the Chinese noted that the said ocean was named after India? If we follow China’s reasoning that the very name of the South China Sea is evidence of their ownership, then they should also concede that the Indian Ocean belongs to India! But no, China is not averse to use two contradictory lines of reasoning on two similar but separate cases as long as it would advance their expansionist agenda.
What I would like to happen is this: What has been named as South China Sea by European navigators and cartographers of bygone days should be renamed as Malayan Sea in honor of the brown seafaring Malayan race — the lahing kayumanggi — who controlled and crisscrossed these waterways long before other nations did, long before the voyage of Admiral Zheng He of China and the explorations of Ferdinand Magellan and other European navigators.
But because the name Malayan Sea might make some of our neighbors feel excluded, we may relegate the name Malayan Sea into a poetic or sentimental nickname. The term “Malayan” — which refers to the brown-skinned inhabitants of Southeast Asia including those in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and elsewhere — is actually fast becoming archaic. The term gaining popularity nowadays is “Austronesian” which corresponds to a larger grouping of peoples collectively known in earlier decades as “Malayo-Polynesian”.
Instead, to promote unity and harmony, I am willing to settle for the more inclusive name “Southeast Asian Sea”. This is almost the same as “Southeast Asia Sea” (Asia instead of Asian), the name preferred by the Vietnamese as indicated by a Vietnamese-initiated petition that circulated online. Both versions of the new name can be adopted, no problem, by regarding each one as the slight variation of the other. I prefer the word “Asian” simply because it makes the proposed name easier to pronounce.
The truth of the matter is that the Southeast Asian Sea or a part thereof has been called by various names by various peoples down the past many centuries. For hundreds of years, it was known to navigators as “Champa Sea” after the great seafaring kingdom of the Chams , a Malayo-Polynesian people who at the height of their power between the 2nd and the 16th centuries controlled central and southern Vietnam and large portions of eastern Cambodia and Laos (although the extent of the Champa domain varied from period to period). The part of the sea close to the Philippines was traditionally called by Filipinos as “Dagat Luzon” (“Luzon Sea”), after the name of our country’s largest island. You may Google for the other names if you wish.
So let us call the whole sea as Southeast Asian Sea. And let us call the part comprising our territorial waters and EEZ as West Philippine Sea (or else adopt the older name Luzon Sea). As for the part comprising Vietnam’s territorial water and EEZ, it may be called the Vietnam Sea or by whatever name the Vietnamese may wish.
How about China? Well, China should Chexit! China should get out of the area and stop strong-arming its smaller neighbors. China has no legal right nor legitimate share in the territorial waters and exclusive economic zones of the Philippines and Vietnam, nor of Indonesia and other Southeast Asian states, nor of Argentina and any other country in the world. The Chinese have their own territorial sea and exclusive economic zone; they should learn to be contented with what they have because they are not the only people who need food and other resources.
For the sake of world peace and amity, China should step back and return to the path of “China’s peaceful rise” which it officially espoused in previous years. As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China should also learn to observe the rule of law and abide with the ruling handed down last July 12 by the UN Arbitral Tribunal concerning the sea they are trying to steal and expropriate by cunning, trickery, intimidation, violence, propaganda, island-building, garrisoning and show of force.
We call on all nations — especially the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Japan, India, South Korea and Indonesia — to help enforce and implement the said ruling of the UN Arbitral Tribunal. We also call on international bodies — particularly the United Nations, ASEAN, the European Union, the Council of Europe, G7, the African Union, the Arab League and the Union of South American Nations— to help uphold international law, freedom of navigation, and a rules-based order in these vital parts of our common planetary home.
We should also call on China itself to return to the wisdom and ethical standard of its ancient sages, especially to the two lofty principles of jen and he — or benevolence and harmony — for the sake of the happiness of the Chinese people as well as for the sake of global friendship and felicity. Without noble, just and beneficent principles to underpin and animate its ambition for world leadership, China would be nothing but a wealthy and powerful bully that would generate stiff opposition at every point of the globe, like what is beginning to happen.
More than 500 years before the birth of Christ, when Confucius was asked if there is one word that could serve as a guide in life, the great Chinese sage answered: “Is ‘reciprocity’ not such a word? Do not to others what you do not want done to yourself.” If China wants to be global leader, it better remember this golden Confucian teaching so that it can secure the Mandate of Heaven — that is, if it is virtuous and fortunate enough — and make itself more acceptable to other nations and thus more successful.
