Philippines banks on US for support

West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) AFP FILE PHOTO

BALI, Indonesia—The Philippines is looking to the United States and President Barack Obama to back its multilateral initiative to peacefully resolve the territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) since its neighbors and China seem cool to the idea.

The Philippines aims to push for the initiative—which takes off from the framework to turn the West China Sea into a zone of peace, freedom, friendship and cooperation (ZoPPF/C) by segregating the disputed from the undisputed areas—at the 19th Association Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Leaders’ Summit and the subsidiary meetings taking place here in the next three days.

Ahead of the summit opening Thursday, China said it was hoping the dispute over Spratly Islands would not be raised at the East Asia Summit, and rejected the Philippine proposal to host a summit on the framework for ZoPPF/C.

Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang said the Philippines would push the initiative at the summit and in subsidiary meetings, and China cannot possibly avoid discussions on the dispute.

He also stressed the importance of bringing the US into the dialogue on the conflicting claims over the strategic and potentially oil- and gas-rich Spratlys.

“The American presence here and the fact that they agree with our position is something that we find helpful,” he told reporters in a briefing here Wednesday.

Carandang acknowledged the crucial role played by the US as a counter-balance against China in the region.

“We think it’s a stabilizing force to have many different players involved in the South China Sea or the West Philippine Sea issue. The more players there are, the more voices there are, will lend to more stability in the region with regard to dealing with this issue,” he said.

The Spratlys, believed to be sitting on top of vast reserves of oil and natural gas, are being claimed in whole or in part by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

The government acknowledged the tough work that lays ahead given the mixed signals coming from other claimant-countries over the Philippine initiative.

“I don’t think there was any outright rejection of it. But you know what the Asean way is. It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. There’s a lot of work that lies ahead of us,” Carandang said.