By Lucio Blanco Pitlo III
Manila claims only part of the South China Sea, but the area it does claim is a core national interest.
Contrary to the thinking in certain quarters, the Philippines does not lay claim to the entire South China Sea (SCS), but rather to that smaller area of the SCS off the country’s western seaboard that is well within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and continental shelf and is known as the West Philippine Sea (WPS). The Philippine government spelled out this difference when President Benigno Aquino Jr. issued Administrative Order 29 on September 5, 2012, which renamed the maritime areas to the country’s west. The Philippines is an archipelagic, maritime state, which makes the WPS a matter of serious national importance given its strategic location, security implications and resources.
The WPS would include the Kalayaan Island Group (part of the larger Spratlys group of features in the SCS), and Bajo de Masinloc, also locally called the Panatag Shoal and internationally known as Scarborough Shoal. But the Kalayaan Island Group and Bajo de Masinloc are actually distinct and quite distant from one other. Moreover, while the Kalayaan Island Group hosts features that are above water, with some large enough to be considered islands, Bajo de Masinloc is an entirely submerged feature. As such, their maritime entitlements differ, as does the basis for Manila’s claims. The tendency in some media reporting to lump all these features and waters together often leads to confusion and creates the impression of parity in terms of the extent of claims made by Philippines with that of other SCS disputants. Hence, the official clarification was timely.
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