{"id":79792,"date":"2016-08-12T02:21:39","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T06:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=79792"},"modified":"2016-08-12T02:21:39","modified_gmt":"2016-08-12T06:21:39","slug":"declare-spratlys-hotspot-marine-protected-park-carpio-urges-rival-sea-claimants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/08\/12\/declare-spratlys-hotspot-marine-protected-park-carpio-urges-rival-sea-claimants\/","title":{"rendered":"Declare Spratlys a hotspot marine-protected park, Carpio urges rival sea claimants"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Senior<\/a>
Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio. (Photo by Center for Strategic & International Studies<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u2014Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio on Thursday called on rival South China Sea claimants to declare the Spratlys a marine protected park to shield it from further destruction following China\u2019s massive island construction binge in the contested waters.<\/p>\n

Carpio sees the move as a \u201cway forward\u201d and a \u201cwin-win\u201d solution to the territorial disputes that involves the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.<\/p>\n

An international tribunal on July 12 had invalidated China\u2019s massive claim over the resource-rich South China Sea and declared its reclamation activities as illegal in response to a complaint filed by the Philippines in January 2013.<\/p>\n

Beijing refused to honor the ruling and discredited the The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration that operates under a United Nations convention, of which it is a signatory, along with the Philippines and more than 160 other states.<\/p>\n

China, according to Carpio, has the \u201clegal obligation\u201d to comply with the ruling, but admitted that there is no marine policeman to enforce the decision, making the waters\u2019 uninhabited feature vulnerable to future destructive reclamation activities by China.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not moving at all so the Philippines should talk to Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia to declare Spratlys as a protected area on our own. We can do that,\u201d Carpio said at a forum organized by think-tank ADR Institute for Strategic and International Studies at De La Salle University in Manila.<\/p>\n

Indonesia is not officially regarded as a South China Sea claimant, but China\u2019s nine-dash line territorial claim is widely believed to be eating up a portion of Indonesia\u2019s Natuna Sea.<\/p>\n

Carpio said the initiative could be done collectively through a convention or a treaty or even individually if it failed to get the cooperation of all other claimants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to move, otherwise, we are stuck here,\u201d he said, noting that a collective declaration will \u201cisolate\u201d China if it will continue to defy the tribunal\u2019s ruling and resume the reclamation of features.<\/p>\n

Backing a proposal by renowned marine biologist Dr. John McManus for the creation of a Spratlys International Marine Peace Park, Carpio said the move would enable all claimants to suspend for 100 years their territorial claims.<\/p>\n

They should also declare all the low-tide and high-tide features in the Spratlys, and an area of 3-nautical miles around each feature, a preserved marine area, for the benefit of all coastal states in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

Carpio said this ensured that the Spratlys will remain the South China Sea\u2019s nursery where fish spawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe eggs and larvae of fish that spawn in the Spratlys are carried by the currents to the coasts of China, Vietnam, Luzon, Palawan, Malaysia, Brunei, Natuna Islands, as well as the Sulu seas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Prof. Carmen Lagman of the De La Salle University\u2019s College of Science claimants may also opt for joint, bilateral, or trilateral agreement for reefs that have been identified by scientists in four areas in the Spratlys as very important.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it does is that its resources will be put in the area for policing and the area will be monitored,\u201d Lagman said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, claimant states, under the peace park proposal, will hold on to whatever islands or structures they now possess, but only coast guard personnel and vessels can be stationed in the Spratlys, said Carpio.<\/p>\n

Existing structures can only be used for marine scientific research and eco-tourism, he said, citing a similar model such as the 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan that created the Red Sea Marine Peace Park in the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea.<\/p>\n

Former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said Manila should act now to save South China Sea\u2019s ecosystem, lamenting that the highly destructive practice by China is now \u201cvery widespread\u201d across the Spratly area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese realities are not just unsustainable, but unacceptable,\u201d he said at the same forum. \u201cIf you can see the gravities of these activities, the incidents they sparked showed us that marine destruction is not simply collateral damage but it is at the heart of the problem to be resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Del Rosario urged the Philippine government to look for ways to cooperate with its neighbors to preserve marine ecosystems in the South China Sea and to ensure the sustainability of fishing resources for everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome things we can not reverse, but at least we should not aggravate the destruction,\u201d Del Rosario said.<\/p>\n

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

MANILA\u2014Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio on Thursday called on rival South China Sea claimants to declare the Spratlys a marine …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":79796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[809,420,851,5236,343,11900,7662,4842,2439,1911],"class_list":["post-79792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-brunei","tag-china","tag-malaysia","tag-maritime-dispute","tag-philippines","tag-senior-associate-justice-antonio-t-carpio","tag-southeast-asia","tag-spratlys","tag-taiwan","tag-vietnam","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79792","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=79792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}