Philippine judge warns inaction over South China Sea dispute with Beijing is ‘unforgivable’
The warning was clearly directed at the Philippine president who, as Asean chair, moved to have the landmark tribunal award won by the Philippines against China last year off the agenda at last week’s summit in Manila
Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, like other members of the Philippine Supreme Court, is tempered in his language, except on the South China Sea issue.
Carpio wrote in an e-book published yesterday that “silence or inaction [on the dispute with China] can be interpreted as a state’s acceptance of a factual or legal situation”.
In the last sentence of his book, which is called Philippine Sovereign Rights and Jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea: the South China Sea Dispute, he bluntly warned: “Failure to heed this caveat, for any reason, is unforgivable.”
While the book made no mention of Rodrigo Duterte, the warning was clearly directed at the Philippine president who, as Asean chair, moved to have the landmark tribunal award won by the Philippines against China last year off the agenda at last week’s summit in Manila.
Carpio, 67, and Duterte share the same hometown of Davao and even went to the same school, although Duterte is four years. After being bypassed for the top post of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Carpio carved himself a role as a strong advocate of the Philippines’ sovereign rights in the South China Sea.