{"id":208239,"date":"2019-04-03T02:55:23","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T06:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=208239"},"modified":"2019-04-03T02:55:23","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T06:55:23","slug":"palace-open-to-bring-arbitration-win-vs-china-to-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/03\/palace-open-to-bring-arbitration-win-vs-china-to-un\/","title":{"rendered":"Palace open to bring arbitration win vs. China to UN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Panelo made this comment after former Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Del Rosario said the Philippines can bring the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA)\u2019s ruling on the WPS before the UN body. (File Photo<\/a>: Office of the Presidential Spokesperson\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Malaca\u00f1ang on Tuesday said bringing the country\u2019s arbitration win against China before the United Nations (UN) General Assembly is an option to address the dispute in the West Philippine Sea or South China Sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cIyon ang isa sa mga puwedeng gawin natin. Sabi ko, mayroong mga<\/em>\u00a0issues\u00a0ng ibang bansa na dinadala sa<\/em>\u00a0General Assembly and they take unified action (That\u2019s one of the actions we can do. I said, there are issues in other countries brought before the General Assembly and they take unified action),\u201d Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Panelo made this comment after former Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Del Rosario said the Philippines can bring the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA)\u2019s ruling on the WPS before the UN body.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is possible.\u00a0Kung<\/em>\u00a0(if) you\u2019re talking of possibilities,\u00a0maraming posible<\/em>\u00a0(there are a lot of possibilities). But whether\u00a0magiging<\/em>\u00a0(it will be) effective or not is another story,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

He also said President Rodrigo R. Duterte will have the final word on whether the Philippine government would proceed with this move.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsa sa mga<\/em>\u00a0option\u00a0iyon<\/em>\u00a0(That\u2019s one of the options). I will let\u2014I\u2019m not the President, I\u2019m just his Spokesman. It\u2019s for the President\u2019s decision. I\u2019m just giving you my thoughts on it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Panelo said he will also ask Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. \u201cwhat are his thoughts on this\u201d.<\/p>\n

Panelo, meanwhile, said that Chinese vessels allegedly surrounding Pag-asa Island in the WPS should leave since the government has already filed a diplomatic protest against China.<\/p>\n

\u201cNagrereklamo na nga tayo \u2018bakit kayo nandiyan, oh di<\/em>\u00a0effectively\u00a0pinaaalis mo na iyon\u2019<\/em>\u00a0(We already complained, \u2018why are you there?\u2019 then effectively, that\u2019s asking them to leave),\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe already filed a note verbale on that, we\u2019re against it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Locsin confirmed in a Tweet that Philippine government has served a \u201csalvo of diplomatic notes\u201d to China over the presence of Chinese vessels near Pag-asa Island.<\/p>\n

Panelo said it will take the word of the Philippine military that the Chinese vessels near Pag-asa Island are Chinese maritime militia, contrary to the claim of Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua that they belong to fishermen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe military command says, from their point of view, its militia men.\u00a0Sino bang paniniwalaan ko, eh di siyempre iyong<\/em>\u00a0military (Who else would I believe, of course the military),\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever the military says, I will defer to them. They are the person on the ground, they should know better,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Zhao earlier said the alleged Chinese vessels belong to fishermen although reports on their presence are still subject to verification.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are actually fishermen if they are fishing there, they must be fishermen. (They are) not armed, so far as I know, they are not armed at all,\u201d Zhao said in a chance interview with reporters before his meeting with Panelo in Malaca\u00f1an Palace on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell we do not know whether there are militia men in that area or not but it is clearly it is an area that is disputed,\u201d he added, urging media to verify reports with Defense Secretary Defin Lorenzana.<\/p>\n

Zhao, however, allayed fears that there would be any sort of conflict in the disputed waters since both Chinese and Philippine governments are settling issues using \u201cfriendly and diplomatic channels\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been handling this issue through friendly and diplomatic channels so you don\u2019t have to worry about whether there would be any kind of outbreak of conflict or not,\u201d Zhao said.<\/p>\n

Panelo maintained that the bilateral mechanism being undertaken by the Philippine government in dealing with China on the maritime dispute is \u201ceffective\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think so. You know why? Because prior to the assumption of the presidency\u2014prior to the visit of the President sa (in) Beijing, iyong mga fishermen\u00a0natin tinataboy talaga eh<\/em>\u00a0(our fishermen were being sent away),\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

Panelo said that, at present, Filipino fishermen have access to fish in the disputed South China Sea.<\/p>\n

On July 12, 2016, the Hague-based PCA released its decision nullifying China\u2019s nine-dash line map which covers nearly the whole of WPS.<\/p>\n

China rejected the ruling, prompting Duterte to temporarily shelve it to allow peaceful and friendly dialogues.<\/p>\n

Duterte, however, vowed to assert the PCA\u2019s verdict before the end of his term in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Malaca\u00f1ang on Tuesday said bringing the country\u2019s arbitration win against China before the United Nations (UN) General Assembly is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":197910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208239","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208240,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208239\/revisions\/208240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}