{"id":219124,"date":"2019-06-17T18:11:10","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T22:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=219124"},"modified":"2019-06-17T18:11:10","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T22:11:10","slug":"premature-to-say-chinese-vessel-in-wps-violated-unclos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/06\/17\/premature-to-say-chinese-vessel-in-wps-violated-unclos\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Premature\u2019 to say Chinese vessel in WPS violated UNCLOS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cPremature\u00a0pa nga kasi hindi pa natin alam ang\u00a0facts.\u00a0Ang alam natin —\u00a0initially\u00a0hindi ba alam natin iniwan, tapos\u00a0they\u2019re disclaiming it (It\u2019s still premature because we don\u2019t know the facts yet. What we know is — initially they were abandoned but then China is disclaiming it),\u201d said Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo in a Palace briefing. (File Photo<\/a>: Office of the Presidential Spokesperson\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— It is \u201cpremature\u201d to say that the presence of the Chinese vessel, which allegedly rammed and abandoned a Filipino fishing boat near the Recto Bank in the West Philippine Sea on June 9, is a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Malaca\u00f1ang said on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cPremature\u00a0pa nga kasi hindi pa natin alam ang<\/em>\u00a0facts.\u00a0Ang alam natin —<\/em>\u00a0initially\u00a0hindi ba alam natin iniwan, tapos<\/em>\u00a0they\u2019re disclaiming it (It\u2019s still premature because we don\u2019t know the facts yet. What we know is — initially they were abandoned but then China is disclaiming it),\u201d said Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, in a statement, earlier said the presence of the Chinese fishing vessel within the Philippine\u2019s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is a violation of UNCLOS.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the arbitration at The Hague, the tribunal ruled that the failure of China to prevent its fishing vessels, even those privately owned, from fishing within Philippine (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea was a violation of UNCLOS,\u201d Carpio said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAntayin muna natin<\/em>, he (Carpio) will be right\u00a0kung totoo iyong talagang iniwan iyong mga Pilipino sa barko<\/em>\u00a0(Let\u2019s wait for the results of the investigation, he will be right if it\u2019s true that the Filipinos were really abandoned),\u201d Panelo commented.<\/p>\n

Both findings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Panelo, meanwhile, said the Palace will consider the results of both investigations being conducted by Filipino and Chinese authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are waiting for the final results of the investigation being conducted by the Chinese government, and that applies to us also because we are also conducting our own investigations,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth findings will be considered. Let\u2019s wait for the facts considering that our initial facts as relayed to us are being disputed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He said while the probe is ongoing, initial claims will be considered \u201cpremature” but clarified this did not mean that Palace is doubting the testimony of Filipino fishermen who claimed that they were abandoned at sea.<\/p>\n

If the Philippines and China have different results in their respective investigations, Panelo said an arbiter or judge will step in \u201cto determine who is telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cO kung magkaiba, eh \u2018di pag-uusapan natin bakit magkaiba. Bakit — sinong mas tama. O siguro<\/em>\u00a0(If we have different findings, let\u2019s talk about why they\u2019re different. Why — who is more correct. Or perhaps), we need to resolve that to an objective arbiter,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

He said the Philippine and Chinese authorities can also resolve the issue via Bilateral Consultative Mechanism.<\/p>\n

Asked if different findings could also be resolved through the Permanent Court of Arbitration, Panelo said he will leave it to Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. to answer the question.<\/p>\n

Not silent<\/strong><\/p>\n

Panelo also defended President Rodrigo Duterte from criticism that the latter has been \u201csilent\u201d by not making any pronouncement in relation to the sinking of the Filipino fishing boat.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s (Duterte\u2019s) not silent, he\u2019s waiting for the facts to set in before he makes any declaration,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTama si Presidente<\/em>\u00a0(The President is right), you cannot be responding\u00a0kaagad nang<\/em>\u00a0(immediately) — you have to know the facts.\u00a0Iyon ang<\/em>training\u00a0ng isang abogado<\/em>\u00a0(That\u2019s the training of a lawyer),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Panelo also reiterated that as a matter of policy, the government will not allow any assault on Philippine sovereignty.<\/p>\n

\u201cSovereignty is never a subject of negotiation,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPag nga alam na natin ang<\/em>\u00a0facts\u00a0at alam natin na tayo ang nasa<\/em>\u00a0disadvantage\u00a0sa nangyaring iyon o \u2018di siyempre mayroon tayong mga gagawin<\/em>\u00a0(When we know the facts and we know that we are at the disadvantage in the incident, of course we\u2019ll do something) to show how serious we are in the protection of our sovereignty as well as our countrymen. Until such time,\u00a0maghintay muna tayo<\/em>\u00a0(let\u2019s wait),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Last week, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. filed a diplomatic protest against China in relation to the alleged abandonment of Filipino fishermen at sea.<\/p>\n

The Chinese Embassy, however, denied the abandonment and instead claimed that their vessel was \u201cbesieged\u201d by several Filipino fishing boats.<\/p>\n

“The Chinese captain tried to rescue the Filipino fishermen, but was afraid of being besieged by other Filipino fishing boats. Therefore, having confirmed the fishermen from the Filipino boat were rescued on board of other Filipino fishing boats, 42212 sailed away from the scene,” the embassy said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Junel Insigne, captain of the F\/B GEM-VIR1 from Occidental Mindoro, reportedly said the Chinese vessel stopped for a while and flashed its lights but instead of rescuing them, the Chinese vessel left the sinking Filipino fishing boat.<\/p>\n

According to an ABS-CBN report, Insigne said it took them two hours to find the Vietnamese vessel that rescued them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— It is \u201cpremature\u201d to say that the presence of the Chinese vessel, which allegedly rammed and abandoned a Filipino …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":197910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219124","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=219124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219125,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219124\/revisions\/219125"}],"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=219124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}