DFA on UNGA reso vs. WPS harassments: All options are open

There is a need to study thoroughly the proposal to raise Chinese “harassments” in the West Philippine Sea before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) but “all options are open,” a ranking Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) official said Wednesday. (File photo: Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of the Philippines/Facebook)

MANILA – There is a need to study thoroughly the proposal to raise Chinese “harassments” in the West Philippine Sea before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) but “all options are open,” a ranking Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) official said Wednesday.

“It’s a process that is in our menu of options. We are not discounting it but there are implications that we have to take into account and there has to be advanced preparations that we have to approach the member states, find out how they will vote,” DFA Undersecretary Antonio Morales told reporters on the sidelines of a post-State of the Nation Address briefing at Hilton Manila.

Morales said there are only around 22 percent of the UN member states who either have expressed full support and asked parties in the South China Sea to comply with the international law or have formally welcomed the 2016 arbitral ruling but have not asked concerned parties to comply with their obligation.

“Twenty-two percent is not a big number. We don’t know if it will get higher or lower. But in short, there are many steps that we have to take, many actions, many positions that we have to determine before we go to that route,” he said.

“But of course, we defer to the wisdom of our legislators. We just want to present the position, to reiterate all options are open,” he added.

In deciding whether or not to file the resolution, Morales said the government has “to have all the information that is necessary to determine whether it’s the proper course of action.”

“Once a decision is made on whether to file a resolution then the process should start from there. For now, we have yet to come up with a decision on whether or not to push a resolution but all options are open,” he reiterated.

In the proposed Senate Resolution No. 659, the Philippine government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs, is urged to sponsor a resolution before the UNGA calling on China to “stop its harassment of Philippines vessels in the West Philippine Sea.”

In her sponsorship speech during the plenary session on Wednesday, Senator Risa Hontiveros said a UNGA resolution could also bolster the 2016 landmark decision, “which makes one thing supremely, and absolutely, clear: China’s claim of historic rights to resources in the waters of the entire South China Sea was illegal and incompatible with the exclusive economic zones provided by the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).”

The Philippines, China, and several other Southeast Asian states are currently locked in a territorial dispute over the resource-rich South China Sea.

In a separate event at EDSA Shangri-La on Wednesday, Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian said Beijing is willing to work with the Philippines to “properly manage differences through consultation and dialogue and ensure China-Philippines relations remain healthy and move steadily into the future”.

He noted that the international and regional situation is “intricate and complex” and that both China and the Philippines as important countries in the region should “avoid Cold-War mentality and ‘bloc’ confrontation, resist external interference and jointly safeguard the regional peace dividend”.