AFP says Arbitral Award not up for debate: China’s claim over WPS invalid

Map showing the disputed areas in the West Philippine Sea, including the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal. AFP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said the 2016 Arbitral Award invalidating the claims of China over the West Philippine Sea is no longer up for debate.

Hence, AFP spokesperson Col. Medel Aguilar said China’s renewed assertion that it owns Pagasa Island, which is located well within the West Philippine Sea, is merely based on what they believe in.

“The 2016 arbitral award actually invalidates that claim so I think … it can no longer be subject to a debate,” Aguilar said in an interview with reporters in Camp Aguinaldo.

“What they are saying is according to what they know, what they believe,” he said. “But it is already the arbitral court that says that their claim for territory has no basis at all.”

Beijing recently reiterated its claim over Pag-asa Island as it denounced the Philippines for “illegally occupying” the area.

Its latest pronouncement was a response to AFP’s report about People’s Liberation Army-Navy warship’s “dangerous maneuver” against a Philippine Navy ship at 5.8 nautical miles southwest of Pag-asa Island.

China has been insisting that it owns nearly all of South China Sea, including the West Philippine Sea, citing its 10-dash line, which used to be nine-dash line.

READ: DND’s Teodoro scorns China’s ‘propaganda’ on West PH Sea: ‘Katawa-tawa’

In 2013, Manila questioned Beijing’s nine-dash line before the Permanent Court of Arbitration. An Arbitral Award was eventually issued in July 2016, effectively dismissing China’s sweeping demarcation.

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