A former official who led an international legal challenge to China said Monday Manila could "seize" some of Beijing's assets for the damage it has wrought in its island-building spree.
Former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said the Philippines could take the state-run Chinese firms' stakes in the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines and DITO Telecommunity.
China has a 40-percent stake in National Grid Corp., which operates the Philippines' power grid or electricity distribution infrastructure.
DITO, meanwhile, is a joint venture between China Telecom and Udenna Corp., which is billed as the Philippines’ third telecommunications firm.
"Philippine authorities have the right to seize assets and properties owned by the Chinese state in the Philippines to satisfy China's debt to the Filipino people once China's full monetary damages are determined," Del Rosario said.
"China can be held accountable here in our country and the Philippine government needs to stand up for Filipinos," said Del Rosario, who dragged China to an arbitration court in 2012 to settle the Philippines’ maritime dispute with that country.
Meanwhile, former Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said Monday the Philippines needs to have a single repository of "historical, legal and environmental research" on the West Philippine Sea.
This is so that younger Filipinos can learn and "continue the struggle" of defending the waters from Chinese incursion, Carpio said.
The country must also have a long-term plan on how to reclaim its islets that have been militarized by China, which "wrongfully" claims that they own the entire South China Sea, the former justice said in a webinar about defending the West Philippine Sea during the global pandemic.
"We must have a very good database of our arguments. All that we have done so far in terms of our historical, legal and environmental research must be put in one place so that this can be accessed by future generations," Carpio said.
"All this knowledge that we have accumulated must be passed on to the next generation… It is important that our generation should teach the Filipino youth all these facts so they will continue the struggle," he added.
A Senate hearing earlier found that China has a 40-percent stake in NGCP, but Chinese officials said they did not control the Philippine power grid.
A study from the University of the Philippines' Marine Science Institute has found that China's reclamation in the Scarborough Shoal and Spratly Islands—measuring up to 1,850 hectares—has resulted in P33.1 billion in annual losses to the Philippines.
As of this year, China owes the Philippines about P200 billion, said Senator Risa Hontiveros. She earlier authored a Senate resolution urging the Chinese government to pay its debt.
"It remains up to the Philippine government to assert that that is indeed a very reasonable and legitimate claim," Hontiveros said.
In April, the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines described Hontiveros' demand to settle its supposed debt as "ridiculously absurd and irresponsible."
China had built massive fortresses in the reefs claimed by the Philippines before President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office in 2016. His predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, won a case before a United Nations-backed arbitration court, but the verdict was handed down during the incumbent's term.
Duterte has yet to enforce The Hague-based court's ruling, and instead has sought closer economic and political ties with China.
But according to Carpio, the Chinese government has taught its citizens "from grade school to college that China owns the South China Sea since ancient times," which, he said, is "totally false" as ancient maps – produced in Beijing – show that the southern-most territory of the Asian giant is Hainan.
The maps were only revised in 1932 when China claimed the Paracels, and again in 1946 to include the Spratlys, he said.
"[In that revised record,] China said that the Spratlys were also claimed by the Philippines and the French who were in Vietnam then… They cannot deny this because this is their own publication," Carpio said.
Filipino students should be exposed to more fora about the Philippines' rights to the West Philippine Sea, said former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, who led the country's team in the arbitration case filed against China in The Hague in 2013.
In 2016, the arbitral court ruled to invalidate China's 9-dash-line map that claimed most of the South China Sea.
"We should have this fora so that our people can be educated… It's all about the rule of law and our people are very strong to take a position… We need to convince our government that rule of law begins in the Palace," Del Rosario said.
Meanwhile, it is important for Filipinos to educate themselves so they can "educate the rest of the world," Carpio said.
"It is important that we educate ourselves… and in the next elections we raise this issue," he added.
