Coming soon: UN tribunal’s ruling on maritime dispute

IN THE next five weeks, the United Nations’ arbitral tribunal will release its decision which is highly expected to favor the Philippines’ cause against China over the maritime dispute in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

But what good would it serve us if not one body has the police power to enforce the ruling, not even a temporary restraining order to stop the massive reclamation work in its early stage, unlike what a conventional court of justice has? Hence, even if the decision would be advantageous to us, we would be left alone to enforce it against China. Note that the G-7 (a group of industrialized nations) is apparently more interested in the freedom of navigation, by which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Moreover, most members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are more concerned with their respective individual territorial security, rather than our reclamation issue. On the other hand, there must be a way for us to solve this impasse.

The Aquino administration’s acquisition of fighter planes and its plans to create a submarine force as an advance missile system as part of the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines came too late; even before then, there was already a confrontation shaping up between superpowers over the freedom of navigation in the WPS.

Though our intention is to boost our capability to protect our interests in the WPS, it could even be misinterpreted by China that we, together with our allies, are posturing for an armed conflict against it. This move might even anger China and serve as a spark to set ablaze a more lethal nuclear war.

This could have been more meaningful and effective were it done at a time when our fishermen were driven away from the then rich fishing grounds of the Panatag Shoal (also known as Scarborough), well within the Philippines’ 370-km exclusive economic zone. So much more when China seized it from us after a two-month standoff between vessels from both countries.

What a waste of time from 2012 to 2015, when even the P60-billion proposed budget for AFP modernization was sent back to the Department of Budget and Management unsigned by no less than the commander in chief.

Yet we live in hope—that all is not yet lost. With a fresh mandate from the Filipino people after our May 9 elections, the incoming administration—with no baggage yet like the bungled rescue operations in the Luneta hostage crisis in 2010, where Hong Kong (a subordinate government of China) was denied an apology by Mr. Aquino—this maritime dispute could still be settled amicably through bilateral talks, using the tribunal’s ruling (should it see the merit of our case) as starting talking points.

Had not Abraham Lincoln, a revered military genius who became a civilian president of the United States, said, “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”

—ARMANDO LIBRANDO ALPAY, c/o [email protected]