Maritime law expert on Benham Rise issue: ‘PH is not a nation of beggars’

West Philippine Sea (PNA Photo)

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque’s claim that Filipinos cannot afford to explore Benham Rise is “completely wrong,” “based on ignorance,” and a “serious disservice” to Filipinos, said Jay L. Batongbacal, the Director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.

The maritime law expert was pertaining to the statement of Roque that Filipinos do not have the potential or financial means to conduct the research in the Philippine Rise for it is too costly for an all-Filipino team.

“No one can do it because, apparently, it’s capital intensive. You do not need a permit for any Filipino corporation to conduct scientific investigation in Benham Rise because it is ours so that’s not something that a consent has to be given by the government,” Roque earlier said.

Batongbacal said that the statement of Malacañang is meant to “disempower” Filipinos and their capability as a people. He added that Philippines is “not a nation of beggars for small change, even if it is from a country as a big and rich as China.”

“Government’s denigration of Filipino scientists and Filipinos in general, claiming they cannot explore Benham Rise without China or Chinese money, is a total sham meant to disempower and demean Filipinos and their capacity and capability as a people. It makes Filipinos appear helpless, clueless and penniless on something already demonstrated they are not,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

The maritime expert pointed out that some countries are already using “new technologies that are becoming fast accessible and affordable” such as artificial intelligence-guided underwater autonomous vehicles called “gliders” to conduct oceanographic researches in the deep ocean.

“I have no doubt that the Philippines can do it as well,” Batongbacal wrote.

“For gov’t to say that Filipinos need China to explore Benham Rise as if there is no else that can do it is both a brazen falsehood and a disservice to the hard work and dedication, the talents and capacities of the Filipino scientific community,” Batongbacal added.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has earlier granted the request of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oceanology to conduct research at the Benham Rise.

On July 2016, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) tribunal has earlier recognized that the Philippines has exclusive sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea and that China’s nine-dash line is invalid.