{"id":152905,"date":"2018-02-14T23:26:42","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T04:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=152905"},"modified":"2018-02-14T23:26:42","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T04:26:42","slug":"pimentel-not-bothered-with-chinas-benham-naming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/14\/pimentel-not-bothered-with-chinas-benham-naming\/","title":{"rendered":"Pimentel not bothered with China’s Benham naming"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The statement of Pimentel came after Malaca\u00f1ang denounced the reported move of China to name at least five undersea features in the Philippine Rise. (Photo<\/a>: Senate President Koko Pimentel\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Senate President Aquilino \u201cKoko\u201d Pimentel III sees no problem with China\u2019s move of naming five undersea features in the Philippine Rise (Benham Rise) since he believes that \u201cno one has a monopoly of the power or right\u201d to give label to any features on the earth, the Senator said on Wednesday in an ambush interview.<\/p>\n

The Senate President said that the Philippines has no \u201cexclusive right\u201d to name any features in the disputed sea even within the country\u2019s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and stressed that the matter is different from the issue of sovereign rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout reading the Convention, or the treaty or the rules governing the naming, commonsense tell me that no one has a monopoly of the power or the right to name features on earth. Wala naman pong ganun<\/em> [There\u2019s no such thing],\u201d Pimentel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is only to name, iba naman yung<\/em> [It is different from] exercising sovereign rights. Even sovereign rights does not mean sovereignty, mga ganun<\/em> [like that] \u2026\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that Benham rise was originally named after American Admiral Andrew Ellicot Kennedy Benham by\u00a0American\u00a0surveyors who were the discoverers of the said feature.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, I will tell you, Benham Rise, who named it, it\u2019s us, right? Did we get angry? Is that an American name? Did we get mad? So that\u2019s it, Chinese name, we are allergic?<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not bothered.\u00a0Basahin yung <\/em>[read the]\u00a0rules, who can propose names, and who can oppose the proposal? If there is such a procedure, let’s avail the procedure. What’s the point?\u201d Pimentel said.<\/p>\n

The statement of Pimentel came after\u00a0Malaca\u00f1ang denounced the reported move of China to name at least five undersea features in the Philippine Rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe object and do not recognize the Chinese names given to some undersea features in the Philippine Rise,\u201d Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. said in a statement sent to media.<\/p>\n

The issue arose following the statement of Director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea Dr. Jay Batongbacal on social media that the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) already approved in 2017 the names proposed by China.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate President Aquilino \u201cKoko\u201d Pimentel III sees no problem with China\u2019s move of naming five undersea features in the Philippine …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":152907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,95],"tags":[46653,46652,13861],"class_list":["post-152905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-ph","tag-chinas-move-of-naming-five-undersea-features-in-the-philippine-rise","tag-philippine-rise-benham-rise","tag-senate-president-aquilino-koko-pimentel-iii","mauthors-michealina-vallarta-david","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}