That recognition is on display at the ongoing Balikatan military drills between the Philippines and the United States, with Australia and France participating and 14 countries observing.
The EEZ is based on UNCLOS, which underpinned the 2016 arbitral ruling defining the Philippines’ sovereign rights and maritime entitlements in that part of the South China Sea that we call the West Philippine Sea. That ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague also invalidated China’s entire nine-dash-line claim over nearly all of the SCS.
As Uncle Ho famously said, “You can kill 10 of our men for every one of yours, but even at these odds, I will win and you will lose,” because the Vietnamese were fighting for their own land.And who said the Philippines is going to war over the WPS? Armed with the arbitral court ruling, the country can draw on allies’ support to peacefully press Beijing to abide by international rules.
Statements condemning Chinese maritime aggression, however, can have some impact if backed by acts or measures that will actually be felt by the Chinese.One such act that several countries such as Australia and Japan are now undertaking is economic decoupling from China. It falls short of economic sanctions, which will require the agreement of other states for greater impact.
Asked what might happen if these vessels harass the Balikatan participants, Logico said there are rules of engagement for such encounters. Police love to trumpet multibillion-peso drug busts. Example was last week’s P13.3-billion interdiction of shabu at a checkpoint in Batangas. As of yesterday, 1,707 blinkers, sirens or wang-wang, and similar devices had been confiscated from vehicles not authorized to use the gadgets, according to the Philippine National Police.