PH asserts rights over Bajo de Masinloc at UNGA

By Joyce Ann L. Rocamora, Philippine News Agency

At the 51st plenary meeting of the 79th session of the UNGA on Dec. 11 (Manila time), Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN in New York Antonio Lagdameo said Manila has sovereignty over the feature. (File photo by UN via PNA)

MANILA – The Philippines has asserted its rights over the Bajo de Masinloc (Scarborough Shoal) before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as it accused China of “gross distortion” of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

At the 51st plenary meeting of the 79th session of the UNGA on Dec. 11 (Manila time), Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN in New York Antonio Lagdameo said Manila has sovereignty over the feature.

“Bajo de Masinloc has always been an integral part of the territory of the Philippines,” he said.

“Only the Philippines, in the exercise of its sovereignty, has the right to establish baselines, and the breadth of the territorial sea around Bajo de Masinloc, in line with the UNCLOS.”

The statement comes following Beijing’s announcement of its baselines around Bajo de Masinloc, which Lagdameo said violates the UNCLOS and undermines the rules-based international order.

Despite the regular harassments the Philippines faces within its maritime zones, Lagdameo said the country “remains committed to diplomacy and other peaceful means to settle disputes”.

“We abide by the UN Charter and the Manila Declaration on the Peaceful Resolution of Disputes in asserting our sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the South China Sea,” he said.

Manila, he said, also rejects the narrative depicting the South China Sea as a theater of major power rivalry, saying it ignores the “fundamental truth that all states as sovereigns have the right to determine their own destiny and to secure their own future”.

At the meeting’s continuation the following day, the Philippines called on China to comply with the UNCLOS, particularly its provisions on baselines.

The Philippines repeated that China’s use of straight baselines was illegal because it can only apply in localities where the coastline is deeply indented and cut into, or if there is a fringe of islands along the coast in its immediate vicinity.

“These conditions do not include the situation of Bajo de Masinloc in relation to China,” the Philippine representative, who read the country’s intervention, said.

“It is not surprising for China to make a gross distortion of UNCLOS when in disregard of UNCLOS, it even falsely asserts a right to draw archipelagic baselines, even though it is not an archipelagic state,” the diplomat added.

Beijing lays sovereignty claims over Bajo de Masinloc, which is located well within the Philippines’ 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

It declared the baselines around the feature after the country enacted the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and the Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act– two landmark laws that reinforces the alignment of Philippine domestic laws with UNCLOS.

The statements were delivered during the UNGA debate on “Oceans and Law of the Sea”, the annual plenary agenda item that considers developments pertaining to the UNCLOS, as well as those relating to ocean affairs and the law of the sea.