Palace bid to water down Baseline Bill treason act

April 22, 2008

GLORIA HAS DUTY TO ASSERT SPRATLYS CLAIM — PIMENTEL

Efforts of Malacañang to dilute the bill delineating the country’s archipelagic baseline by introducing a provision to call the disputed Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoals as parts of a “regime of islands” is an act of treason, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said yesterday.

The Palace continued to employ maneuvers to frustrate taking up the bill, House Bill 3216, yesterday by not including it in the agenda of yesterday’s Legislative and Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) meeting in Malacañang which was presided over by President Arroyo and attended by nine senators and 14 congressmen.

The other day, the leaders of the House of Representatives who are allied with Mrs. Arroyo, decided to postpone deliberations on the bill despite its being scheduled for final reading.

The Chinese government is applying active pressure on the government to drop the bill which includes the disputed islands within the country’s boundaries.

Mrs. Arroyo had sought the bill to be reverted to the committee level in the House to introduce amendments that would put the disputed islands outside the Philippine boundaries.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said there was a consensus to tackle the matter at a separate Ledac meeting soon.

“There was mention (of the bill) but according to the PLLO (Presidential Legislative

Liaison Office), a separate Ledac will be scheduled. I don’t really know the date but I guess it needs special treatment. This is a very complicated issue and it might not be appropriate to lump this issue together with other concerns being discussed in the Ledac meeting,” Bunye said.

Pimentel said the Senate and House of Representatives should not to succumb to Malacañang’s pressure to water down the bill.

Pimentel said the Palace’s position to treat the Kalayaan Islands and Scarborough Shoal as a “regime of islands” would have the effect of weakening the country’s claim to those islands over which it already exercises effective sovereign control.

“The proposed exclusion of the Spratlys and Scarborough Shoal is tragic, if not treasonous,” he said.

“It’s the duty of President Arroyo to assert our territorial claims forcefully but peacefully,” he said.

Pimentel has filed a bill with the Senate adopting in full the House version of the bill on the Philippine archipelagic baselines authored by Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco. He said he took this course of action to expedite the enactment of the long-overdue bill which is required from the Philippines by the United Nations pursuant to the UN Law of the Sea.

He said the Palace’s resistance to the bill’s passage, as currently drafted, only fuels the suspicion that the Arroyo government does not want to offend China because it may jeopardize the economic and business package that was promised her by Beijing.

Pimentel, however, said any conflicting or overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea should be resolved by the United Nations.

The senator stressed that placing the disputed islands within the country’s boundary does not mean that the country is provoking a war with other countries.

The people need to see those islands the country is claiming within its map. I think it is important that the country formalizes its claim. We’ll just state our claims and let the UN tell us whether or not we are right, Pimentel said.

A weakened law on the Philippine baseline would pave the way for Chinese oil exploration within the country’s territory particularly in the contested islands of the Spratly’s, Kalayaan Island Group and the Scarborough Shoal, opposition lawmaker Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr added.

The House had deferred to Malacañang’s wishes in shelving the passage of House Bill 3216 otherwise known as “An Act Defining the Archipelagic Baselines of the Philippine Archipelago, Amending for the Purpose Republic Act 3046, as Amended by Republic Act 5446.”

“I really have a feeling in my bones that if we give in to Malacañang, five years from now, you will discover that there are oil drilling concessions under the Chinese government in those areas,” said Locsin.

Malacañang is intensely lobbying that the House amend the bill to exclude the contested islands from the archipelagic baseline bill.

With Speaker Prospero Nograles’ 360-degree turnaround on his earlier position of full-pledged support for the bill, Locsin has asked Rep. Cuenco of Cebu, chairman of the House committee on foreign affairs and author of the baseline bill, to help him in the passage of a treason bill to include the willful alienation of Philippine claims by foreign powers.

Nograles is reportedly keen on toeing Malacañang’s line to exclude the contested islands from the Cuenco Bill.

Locsin scored the Palace on what he described as its mental dishonesty when it asked House leaders to treat the Kalayaan Island Group as a “regime of islands” that will be outside and detached from the main archipelagic baseline.

Under HB 3216, the country’s archipelagic baseline jurisdiction would cover the disputed Spratlys islands and Scarborough Shoal.

Cuenco had earlier said he and his colleagues in the House will not abandon their stand on the baseline bill even as he asked the Senate to help him out in the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) and come up with a version that is beneficial to the country.

“We will not abandon our stand, we will push through with our stand,” said Cuenco.

Cuenco said that he and Senator Pimentel, who adopted his baseline bill are in constant touch regarding the matter.

In fact, he said Pimentel has proposed “option 5” when worse comes to worst.

“Nene Pimentel and I are in constant touch with each other and he is very cooperative. He has Option 5, which goes something like this: In the Kalayaan Island Group there are 90 islands that are really viable because they are not covered by the sea. A lot is hidden when the tide is high. There are 90 islands that are habitable and out of 90, nine are big islands in we are in actual occupation,” Cuenco explained.

“The Philippines is actually occupying those. Pimentel’s and my proposal when worse comes to worst that our baselines should cover the nine islands. Those occupied by China, Vietnam and Taiwan, we won’t include first if worse comes to worst,” Cuenco said.

The other day, the Lower House suspended deliberations the baseline bill on the pretext that a consensus with the Senate counterparts must be reached.

Before this, there were insinuations that the Palace was “pressuring” the Lower House not to pass the Baseline bill on the urging of China.

At the Ledac’ meeting, two priority measures, instead, - the income tax exemption for minimum wage earners and cheaper medicine bill were agreed to be passed before May 1 by the lawmakers.

The two priority measures were part of the 17 priority measures being pushed by the executive and legislative and these are the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira),Amnesty Program, Credit Information System, Personal Equity Retirement Account (Pera), Amendments of the Customs Brokers Act, Renewable Energy Act, National Tourism Policy, Carp extension, Amendments in the Consumers Act, Strengthening of the Ombudsman Act, Anti Smuggling Act, Stiffer Penalties for Illegal Possession of Explosives Act, Magna Carta for Women, Witness Protection Act and Fire Protection Modernization.

Aside from this, Bunye said the lawmakers also agreed to consider it as priority bills food production-related measures like the farmland as collateral bill, renewal of Carp, review of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act , Agri-Agra Law and Food donation bill.

In the meeting, Sen. Edgardo Angara said the above-mentioned food-related measures will be prioritized next month by Congress, which was not disputed by his colleague-lawmakers.

The nine Senators were headed by Senate President Manuel Villar along with Senators Loren Legarda, Francisco Pangilinan, Miguel Zubiri, Angara, Mar Roxas, Richard Gordon , Juan Ponce-Enrile and Rodolfo Biazon.

On the other hand, the 14 congressmen were headed by Speaker Prospero Nograles.

By Angie M. Rosales, Sherwin C. Olaes, Charlie V. Manalo

source : http://tribune.net.ph/headlines/20080423hed1.html

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