SCUFN rejects PH’s plea to nullify PH Rise feature naming

The said letter was a response to the Philippines’ request on February 28 to nullify Chiina’s approved names of the Philippine Rise features. (Google Maps photo)

Just like how a maritime law expert predicted on February, the Duterte administration’s appeal to nullify China’s naming of some of the undersea features of the Philippine Rise, formerly known as Benham Rise, was rejected.

The International Hydrographic Organization-Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (IHO-IOC GEBCO) Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN) approved the proposal of China to name five undersea features in the Philippine Rise.

This was protested by the government by tapping the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

PhilStar.com, through a letter to an overseas DFA office they obtained, reported that the Philippines lost in its protest.

“It is my view as responsible chair, that SCUFN should not recommend the nullification of the decision already made on these five procedures in force,” Prof. Dr. Hans Werner wrote in the letter dated March 6.

The said letter was a response to the Philippines’ request on February 28 to nullify China’s approved names of the Philippine Rise features. The government’s appeal also included the “rejection of pending proposals in the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and extended continental shelf.” The Philippines’s argument was based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Werner, however, countered that the “UNCLOS has legally no explicit effect with regard to the naming of undersea features in EEZs and therefore cannot be used as an argument for preventing SCUFN, as the designated international authoritative body, from reviewing naming proposals, as long as these features (more than 50%) are located outside the external limits of the territorial sea.”

Dr. Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines (UP) Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, earlier predicted this outcome.

(Read: Expert: PH protest on Chinese names may be too late)

“Hindi ko alam kung mag-wo-work iyan[g protest] dahil tapos na ang proseso. Open ang process. It was transparent. So parang medyo nakakahiya rin naman sa atin na too late the hero naman tayo na biglang mag-o-object (I do not know if that protest will work because the process is done. The process was open. It was transparent. So it is a bit embarrassing for us as too late the hero to suddenly object),” Batongbacal said in an interview with DZMM.

He then added, “Technically, alam nating nangyari iyon tapos hindi tayo umaalma (we know what is happening yet we are not protesting). It’s going to be awkward and in a way, (it is) out of order na (already).”

On April 26, Thursday, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte announced that he will go to the Philippine Rise to emphasize the country’s ownership and sovereign rights.

“Next week, I’m going to the Benham Rise. And I will make a statement that nobody but nobody owns this place including the continental shelf, the underground landmass that extends under the sea,” he said.