Carpio: War is an impossible option

Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

WAR is an impossible option in pursuing the Philippines’ claim to the disputed islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said on Thursday.

Carpio spoke before the 20th National Press Forum of the Philippine Press Institute at the Century Park Hotel in Manila.

“If we remain in our right mind, we will not start a war with China…The only forum where we can bring the dispute, where we can possibly win is the legal forum. We need the ruling to start all our programs on the West Philippine Sea,” said Carpio, who was part of the Philippine delegation that argued before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA).

Carpio said even if the PCA rules in favor of the Philippines, Beijing is expected to ignore the decision.

“There is no world policeman to draw out the Chinese in the (disputed) area,” he lamented, adding that even the US cannot also be expected to enforce the ruling as an ally of the Philippines.

“We have to push back and use all of our available resources, legal strategy and alliances. This is a matter of long-term positioning. If we win the case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration and I don’t see any way for the arbitral tribunal to affirm China’s reasoning, then we have to push the envelop as far as we can; we can negotiate; we have to be creative about this. Someone even suggested we should have a people power at sea wherein we send thousands of our fishermen to the area. We have to keep thinking about this,” Carpio said.

Still, Carpio said that while the Philippines has no intention of going to war against China, the country still needs “to develop a credible defense posture that’s like what Vietnam is doing.”

He said Vietnam has acquired six Kilo class submarines, frigate, missiles and combat aircraft from Russia.

“We have to develop our own self-defense just to make it costly for any country to grab our territory,” Carpio added.

At the same time, he said the dispute in the area might intensify but only between coast guard fleets and fishing vessels of different claimant countries.

“I do not see them invading Luzon or Palawan but I see them buying our companies and the media here. Of course, there are constitutional prohibition against it but they can buy our power generation companies, they don’t have to invade us, they can just buy us,” he said.

Carpio had been actively discussing the conflict in the West Philippine Sea since 2013.

He believed that China’s claim to a “historical right” to the waters within the nine-dash line in the South China Sea is without basis under international law.

Carpio said UNCLOS had extinguished all historical rights of other states within the 200 nautical miles (NM) exclusive economic zone of the adjacent coastal state. This, he said, was why the 200 NM zone is called “exclusive” – no state other than the adjacent coastal state can exploit economically its resources.

China claims that Scarborough Shoal, which it calls Huangyan Island, is the Nanhai island that the 13th century Chinese astronomer-engineer-mathematician Guo Shoujing supposedly visited in 1279 on the order of Kublai Khan, the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, to conduct a survey of the Four Seas to update the Sung Dynasty calendar system.

This, according to Carpio, is the only historical link supporting China’s claim to Scarborough Shoal.

The same historical background, he said, has been used by China in claiming another territory, the Paracel group of islands, against Vietnam.

Carpio noted that a January 30, 1980 document entitled “China’s Sovereignty Over Xisha and Zhongsa Islands Is Indisputable” and published in Beijing Review by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, officially declared that the Nanhai island that Guo Shoujing visited in 1279 was in Xisha or what is internationally called the Paracel group of islands located more than 380 NM from Scarborough Shoal.

The senior magistrate said it is puzzling how Guo Shoujing went ashore to “visit” Scarborough Shoal when “it was just a rock, with no vegetation, and did not even have enough space to accommodate an expedition party.”