Such a base on Panatag would give China enough radar coverage of the South China Sea that would enable it to impose an air-defense identification zone similar to what it did a few years ago in the East Sea region where it has territorial rifts with Japan, he said.
China and the Philippines, along with Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan have overlapping claims to parts or all of the South China Sea that straddle busy sea-lanes and are believed to be atop undersea deposits of oil and gas.
Former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said China was building a “Berlin Wall of the Sea†that excluded everyone else and had prevented the Philippines from exploring and exploiting areas where it had rights according to the arbitral ruling.
He praised Carpio for promoting the rule of law as “the great equalizer,†which had worked well for a small country against a superpower.
The arbitral ruling provided the Philippines with the protection of “a durable, rules-based solution†to disputes among nations, Del Rosario said.
“It must be realized that we cannot weaken that protection by picking and choosing when to promote the law and when to ignore it. By obligation, through our leadership and with the support of the responsible community of nations, we must instead ensure that the whole of the rules-based system succeeds,†Del Rosario said in an apparent swipe at President Duterte.
The President, who has eased Manila-Beijing ties that were strained by the arbitration case, has declared he will eventually raise the ruling with China’s leaders, but has been vague on when.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=86839.0