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Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Nograles wants Palace assurance on RP's claim in Spratlys (3:19 p.m.)
MANILA -- House Speaker Prospero Nograles said Tuesday Malacañang may be wrong in asking the House to treat the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and Scarborough Shoal as "regime of islands" and not a part of the country’s archipelagic baseline.
“Malacanang can be right but it can also be wrong. We have to be very careful about this,” he said in a statement.
While he respects Malacanang's position that the country's claim over the disputed territories will not be weakened, “there is a need to consider the possibility that it can also be wrong.”
Nograles said he wants Malacañang to guarantee Congress that its position on the territorial baseline bill (HB 3216) in the disputed Spratlys will not endanger the country’s claim on the territory.
“This baseline bill, once it becomes a law will be a permanent document that will be submitted to the UN and we don't want to weaken our claim on these territories based on technicality,” he said.
In a letter to Nograles, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, chair of the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs (CMOA), requested the House to treat the disputed territory as mere “regime islands” instead of declaring it as part of the country’s territorial baselines.
Ermita said Malacañang’s position was arrived at after a series of inter-departmental discussions and consultations with legal minds on international law.
By treating KIG and Scarborough as "regime of islands," the seas off the western side of the Philippines extending to these areas will be excluded from the country’s territorial waters. The islands will, however, generate their own maritime zones.(WV/Sunnex) |
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