South China Sea: calls grow in Philippines for UN intervention against Beijing over Hague ruling refusal

More of the Southeast Asian nation’s senators have thrown their weight behind a proposal to pursue UN intervention in the long-running dispute

‘China claims to be an ally … but it’s harassing our fisherfolk,’ said one lawmaker who backs the plan to raise the issue at the UN General Assembly

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Members of the Philippine coastguard look on during a joint maritime exercise in the South China Sea with the coastguards of Japan and the US earlier this month. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 5:00pm, 27 Jun 2023

The Philippines’ long-running feud with China over its refusal to recognise a 2016 international arbitral ruling that invalidated most of Beijing’s claims to the disputed South China Sea could soon be raised at the United Nations’ General Assembly, after more Philippine senators gave the proposal their backing.

Introduced last week by lawmaker and outspoken China critic Risa Hontiveros, the Senate resolution calls on the Department of Foreign Affairs to pursue a UN intervention prodding Beijing to accept The Hague tribunal’s verdict, which recognised the Philippines’ sovereign rights in the resource-rich waterway.

Beijing claims sovereignty over almost the entirety of the South China Sea – where the Philippines and several other nations have competing claims – and has dismissed the UN-backed panel’s judgment.

A member of the Philippine coastguard holds the national flags of the Philippines and China to mark the arrival of a Chinese naval training ship on a goodwill visit earlier this month. Photo: AP

Senators JV Ejercito and Francis Tolentino rallied behind Hontiveros’s plan, saying the country needs to use all available diplomatic strategies to assert its rights over the West Philippine Sea – the term Manila uses to describe the eastern parts of the South China Sea that are within its exclusive economic zone and territorial waters.

“China claims to be an ally and a friend [of the Philippines] but it’s harassing our fisherfolk,” Ejercito said, referring to frequent instances of Chinese coastguard ships blocking Philippine naval vessels and fishing boats from approaching islands administered by Manila in the South China Sea.

Another lawmaker, Jinggoy Estrada, expressed hope his colleagues would overwhelmingly support the resolution, but warned that it should not be used as a tool to cut ties with any country in safeguarding the Philippines’ maritime rights.

“As President [Ferdinand Marcos Jnr] said, we have to create more friends, be it China or the US,” Estrada said.

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