BAYAN Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate on Sunday said the US does not have any right to step into the dispute between China and the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal, noting that Washington has done nothing to help Manila end the territorial row.
“No amount of US posturing and promises resulted in this development. We hope that this will continue with no Chinese strings attached,” he said, referring to return of Filipino fishermen to the disputed shoal that the Philippines calls Panatag.
“On the other hand, the US also has no right to… interfere in the Panatag Shoal issue as in fact, it is… its saber-rattling and supposed Asian pivot that escalated the tension in the West Philippine Sea in the first place. They [US] must just keep quiet since they have not done us any help,” the leftist lawmaker said.
Zarate welcomed the return of the Filipino fishermen to the fishing grounds of the Scarborough Shoal without any Chinese harassment.
Still, he said, the Philippines must assert its sovereignty.
“What is needed now is to ensure that our fisher[men] could continue to fish at the Panatag Shoal and at the same time, not [to] compromise our national sovereignty,” he said.
He credited the “Duterte-style of diplomacy” for the successful return of Filipino fishermen to the disputed waters.
“We hope that this will continue. But, of course, this development should not be a ground to set aside our rightful and adjudged claim on the Panatag Shoal, as ruled by the Permanent Court of Arbitration,” he said.
In July, the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal’s International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
decided that China did not have any legal basis to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within its “nine-dash line.”
China, which refused to join the proceedings from the start, rejected the tribunal’s ruling.
In his recent state visit to Beijing, President Rodrigo Duterte met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and raised the issue of fishing rights in Scarborough Shoal.
Days after the President’s state visit, Filipino fishermen were able to enter the contested shoal without harassment from the Chinese Coast Guard.
The fishermens group Pamalakaya on Sunday lashed out at the United States for saying it would verify reports that Chinese vessels have not been sighted at Scarborough Shoal since Wednesday.
“Why would the US even bother to verify if this is true? They have nothing to do anymore in the issue of the dispute much more now that we have partially settled it without their help. We urge the United States to take its warmongering-hands off the Scarborough Shoal issue,” said Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya chairman.
The Philippines and China have yet to form an official agreement on the use of Scarborough but Pamalakaya saw the return of the fishermen as a welcome development after China had aggressively occupied the West Philippine Sea, harassing and preventing Filipino fishermen from sailing into their traditional fishing grounds. With Sandy Araneta
