By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

Part 11: A Nation with Many Strange Voices

An AI video shows a Golden Retriever telling a Bulldog, “I finally discovered what’s wrong with my brain”, said the retriever, “There is nothing right about my left, and there is nothing left about my right!” The conversation ended with a loud canine laughter.

This is why when more lapdogs dip into the ‘West Philippine Sea’ debates, shit happens:

1. Fact checking becomes a necessity.

2. Laws diminish enforceability.

3. Ad hominems increase.

4. Stupidity becomes normative.

Former Ambassador to Greece and Cyprus Rigoberto Tiglao exposes the buffoonery:

“One of them, Antonio Contreras, who is a board member of government propaganda outfit, wrote that under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), an exclusive economic zone ‘extends 200 nautical miles from a coastal state’s baselines’ and is therefore a ‘mechanical, rule-based entitlement.’

But the more rectal is “Marlen Ronquillo, claiming that Philippine laws have already codified a specific area called the West Philippine Sea and that “official maps have been drawn to reflect this, citing the Philippine Maritime Zones Act of 2024 (Republic Act 12064).”

Both assertions, which echo expired Asso Justice Antonio Carpio’s improvisations, collapse the moment one actually reads the law.

Shtick

Traditional journalism is built on the principle of suppressing personal biases and presenting facts neutrally. Ronquillo hides his lack of gray matter with semantics. A ‘shtick’ implies a contrived, insincere act, which directly conflicts with the goal of being a trusted, objective reporter.

A shtick is a gimmick, comic routine, style of performance. But what he may have reintroduced in everyday newspaper vocabulary only exposes his own gimmicky carrying a negative connotation of being insincere or shallow. It was highly inappropriate because he was interpreting a serious legalese, way beyond his paygrade.

Then Ronquillo maliciously imputes dirty motive in Senator Rodante Marcoleta discussions in aid of legislation. Law making is farthest from the lawyering that Carpio is doing.

Former magistrates are useless without laws. But Senators are not restricted by existing law. In fact, their jobs are not just to make laws, but to make sure obsolete laws are updated to best serve national interest; they are not bound by perceptions of wisdom or the lack of wisdom of any existing law.

Legislators are mandated to create, amend, or repeal binding rules—known as laws or statutes—to regulate society. It is the mechanism that translates ideas into enforceable rules, ensuring they are debated, reviewed, and finalized before affecting the public.

This is why PCG Commodore Jay Tarriela’s jingoism is horse pucky.

Some laws like the Philippine Maritime Zones Act (Republic Act 12064) immediately have become obsolete immediately after it was signed last November 2024 by Bongbong Marcos.

What good is an internal law, if it cannot be enforced because it does not harmonize with international law? The PMZA has no operability – it codified the United Nations Law of the Sea in its Section 14, but severely contradicted it as early as its Section 2.

In the case of the Carpio-Marcoleta debates, the trickery of the expired magistrate became obvious when he cited two Articles of the Convention: How can Carpio get to Article 76 and 77 of UNCLOS, without passing through Articles 74 and 75?

That exposes the selective mind of Carpio. He cherry picks only provisions that reinforces his feeble legal theories.

The question with EEZs that Marcoleta is pointing out is not “legality” or “automaticity” but enforceability.

While the application of an EEZ is automatic as it is ab initio a provision of the Convention, but the same law confronts the possibility of ‘disputes’ in Article 74 and in fact prescribes how an impasse can be resolved.

If Carpio missed on an Article after what he quoted, that may be excusable as an oversight, but missing out on something before what he cited, that is more than a need for new bifocals. That is a deliberate omission and intellectual dishonesty.

It proves that in referencing UNCLOS, Carpio resorts to only googling and does not have a mastery of the basic document he is using as reference.

In short automaticity cannot stand alone because it cannot exist in a vacuum. We are not dealing here with constitutional law that Carpio feigns expertise, we are dealing here with international law where has he absolutely no credibility.

His incompetence is illustrated by a map drawn by the National Mapping Resource Information Agency that shows how our southern “sovereign rights” have overlapped with Malaysia and Vietnam (see Chart#1 for a circumferential simulation in green color) below.

Our EEZ overlaps Malaysian sovereignty over land territory of Borneo. Our EEZ overlaps with the EEZ of Vietnam, and the territorial seas of some of the rocks it is occupying in the Spratlys.

In Chart #2, see how our EEZ overlaps with China’s EEZ.

Carpio says there is no need to make submissions to any international body our coordinates for an EEZ, because Global Positioning System (GPS) would be sufficient? This again contradicts Article 75 of UNCLOS.

Slander

Devoid of fact and reason, this Manila Times calumnist imputes dirt on the occupation of Marcoleta’s wife Edna.

Ronquillo definitely exceeded his balding hairline when he forced through Edna Marcoleta’s being an independent director for Stronghold Insurance Co. Inc., as involvement in the alleged corruption of the Discayas, a major contractor involved in the flood control scandals.

He correctly identifies Edna as ‘independent’ director, and the Discayas as clients of Stronghold.

The Discayas have not yet been convicted of any wrongdoing.

Independent directors in insurance companies are not stockholders, surrogates or dummies, but act as unbiased stewards, providing critical oversight to ensure regulatory compliance and cover the insurable interests of policyholders for the benefit of stakeholders. She performs a government requirement representing public interest over the narrow profit motives of owners and corporate directors in the closed boardrooms of insurance companies.

To be direct to the point, Discaya has not paid bribes to Mrs. Marcoleta, but premiums to the company.

In exchange for premiums, Stronghold assumes all liabilities of the contract it insured, making sure any second or third parties are indemnified in case of any liability incurred in the event of a claim.

Instead of thanking Marcoleta for public service of his wife, Ronquillo hints at an indictment to corruption. That can only come from a pea brain. If he thinks that is corrupt, then the entire insurance industry had better fold up.

This bozo cannot debate me here. After my diplomatic tenure in Washington DC in 1993, I became a licensed insurance practitioner in the State of Virginia, until I was asked by the Philippine Insurance Commission to help rehabilitate Capital Insurance & Surety Company in the late 90s.

Carpio’s law

Obviously, Ronquillo also does not know the difference between internal law and international law and only relies on the lies of Carpio.

But being a two-bit lawyer, politically appointed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the highest court of the land without even serving as referee in a basketball game, Carpio’s law is based on jurisprudence that can be ‘amended, replaced or even repealed’ when initiated by Marcoleta as a legislator.

Moreover, international law is determined by international relations. There is no single “constitution” in international relations. UNCLOS is not a one-size-that-fits-all international law but just one treaty, limited to maritime entitlements, labelled LOS as in ‘law of the sea’.

There are over 250,000 written conventions worldwide because many of them deal with specific bilateral or multilateral treaties between party states. Most international laws are not even written but derived from consistent, general state practices accepted as legally binding (opinion juris).

So, what are the UNCLOS provisions Carpio does not know or conveniently omitted?

Article 74

“1. The delimitation of the exclusive economic zone between States with opposite or adjacent coasts shall be effected by agreement on the basis of international law, as referred to in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, in order to achieve an equitable solution.

“3. Pending agreement as provided for in paragraph 1, the States concerned, in a spirit of understanding and cooperation, shall make every effort to enter into provisional arrangements of a practical nature (protocol) and, during this transitional period, not to jeopardize or hamper the reaching of the final agreement. Such arrangements shall be without prejudice to the final delimitation.

“4. Where there is an agreement in force between the States concerned, questions relating to the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone shall be determined in accordance with the provisions of that agreement.

Article 75

“1. Subject to this Part, the outer limit lines of the exclusive economic zone and the lines of delimitation drawn in accordance with article 74 shall be shown on charts of a scale or scales adequate for ascertaining their position. Where appropriate, lists of geographical coordinates of points, specifying the geodetic datum, may be substituted for such outer limit lines or lines of delimitation.

“2. The coastal State shall give due publicity to such charts or lists of geographical coordinates and shall deposit a copy of each such chart or list with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.“

Compare what that law has just said with Carpio statement “A coastal state has the inherent right to its continental shelf without need of any formal announcement, proclamation or occupation (and that therefore) there is no need to proclaim the coordinates of the outer limits of the coastal state’s EEZ,” and tell me if he is not lying to his teeth.

So, next time Ronquillo says, “Retired Supreme Court associate justice Antonio Carpio, a legal scholar on territorial issues, and on many complex areas of the law,” as well as calling Carpio ‘brilliant’, and he doesn’t pis on his pants – he must be overloaded with ‘potassium’ in his pockets.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander. When you celebrate dropping the ‘nine-dash line’ in 2016 but draw a ‘west Philippine sea’ in 2024, what do you call that?

Tiglao educates

            Ambassador Tiglao, another Manila Times columnist, narrates that some 56 countries have submitted to the UN the exact coordinates of their EEZs, to strengthen the legality of their claims.

The Philippines submitted the boundaries of Benham Rise in April 2009 after ten years of surveying and strengthening our claim to that vast area, coded as MD972143.

(In April 2012, the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) approved the Philippine submission, recognizing the 13-million-hectare Benham Rise (now renamed Philippine Rise) as part of the country’s exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles and an additional extended continental shelf of 118 nautical miles.)

The Philippines also submitted to the UN in 2014 the limits of our southern EEZ to prevent an overlapping with that of Indonesia.

However, this seems to be an area where have been inconsistent and negligent.

In the NAMRIA map, we see why Malaysia recently protested the intrusion of our EEZ onto the sovereignty land and territorial sea of North Borneo. Only in the Philippines does a maritime zone walk across land!

This map that accompanied our baselines law, Republic Act 9522 was digested hook line and sinker by the Philippine Maritime Zones Act, Republic Act 12064.

This is why for so many years now, NAMRIA cannot provide the latest official map of the Philippines, despite numerous formal requests by Tiglao over many years on the strength of the Freedom of Information Act. The government agency cannot do so because it does not have the coordinates of the limits of our EEZ and other features we are claiming in the Spratlys.    

This is crucial because the International Hydrographic Organization has an official map of the South China Seas and its coordinates, but none of a so-called ‘west Philippine sea’.

                        IHO map of South China Seas, with coordinates.

Demagoguery

Tiglao asks, “Why, then is Carpio, many politicians, and our defense establishment propagating the lie that the EEZ is ‘our territory’?”

The former ambassador provides two reasons:

First, “It is politically convenient as it inflames nationalist sentiments or jingoism. It allows them to cast themselves as defenders of ‘every inch’ of something that never was an inch of land in the first place.”

Second, “There is a deeper reason, though. portraying China as a bully encroaching on our territory is a narrative the US has been disseminating to demonize China, which is its biggest rival…”

Tiglao explains the asymmetry: the term, ‘Exclusive Economic Zone’, unfortunately, is certainly confusing. To most ears, ‘exclusive’ sounds like a fence: this is ours, keep out. When you put the two terms ‘exclusive and economic’ together, one can get the wrong notion that this belt of sea is a kind of offshore territory where we can do whatever we want and forbid whatever we dislike.

Within that zone, however, Tiglao clarifies, we only have ‘sovereign rights’ over living and non‑living resources in the water column and seabed, plus certain jurisdiction over artificial islands, marine scientific research and environmental protection. It can license fishing, drill for oil and gas, lay pipelines, and regulate those activities.

Note the wording: ‘sovereign rights’, not full sovereignty.

Sovereign rights are functional, limited and subject to UNCLOS. Sovereignty is comprehensive, like what we have over our archipelagic baselines and its 12 nautical mile territorial sea.

Sovereignty means we own everything from the under the sea bed, the seabed, to the water column and its surface, and to the aerospace above it.

Tiglao continues, “In sovereignty, a state has the highest authority over a territory, subject only to expressed exceptions in international law. Within its land and territorial sea, it can regulate almost everything: even impose criminal law and (refuse) foreign military (passage).”

In the EEZ, however, foreign ships may still navigate freely. Foreign aircraft may overfly without filing flight plans with the coastal state. When a foreign warship sails through our EEZ but outside our territorial sea, it is not “violating Philippine sovereignty.”

We cannot close the EEZ and call it our ‘air defense identification zone’ because we only have ‘sovereign rights’ because the water lies within 200 nautical miles. It is foolhardy to also patrol our EEZ, under the illusion it is our own, wasting fuel and risking the safety and lives of our uniformed personnel when challenged by another claimant state.

Conclusion

Our government must stop using the terms, ‘sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction’ simultaneously and interchangeably.

Tiglao bemoans, “When our politicians, an ignorant former magistrate, and a crazy Philippine Coast Guard official declare that any presence of a foreign coast guard vessel in our EEZ is a ‘violation of sovereignty’, they are over‑claiming, essentially lying.

“That kind of rhetorical inflation is not harmless. It sets up the expectation that if we do not ‘drive out’ every foreign ship from every inch of our EEZ, we are somehow surrendering territory, betraying the nation, or being cowardly.”

Treating Chinese ships in the EEZ as an ‘intruder in our waters’ is false, emotional politics, not law. The slogan Atin Ito, has erroneously morphed into ‘this sea is ours, full stop’.

In fact, staking our sovereignty outside of our 12-nautical mile territorial sea, is a reckless provocation for a false start and can lead to escalation onto war.

Next Part: Loopholes show Why Philippines’ Claim is Weakest in the Spratlys

   

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