In October 2023, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla bared plans by the Marcos administration to sue China earlier than a world tribunal for what Remulla mentioned was the “innumerable and immeasurable” harm Beijing had inflicted on the Philippines’ marine assets and surroundings within the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
The formal authorized transfer, he added, could be “not solely of the Filipino folks however the remainder of humanity,” and the proof marshaled by the case would “present the abomination that China is doing to our waters.”
The timetable introduced by Remulla for the case was early 2024, or by March “on the newest.”
It’s now July 2025, and that vital go well with seems nowhere to being filed, whilst China has continued its unbridled depredations on marine territory that the Everlasting Court docket of Arbitration within the Hague had dominated as indisputably belonging to the Philippines.
As a result of Beijing needs the world to conveniently ignore the damning reality, it must be reiterated again and again that the arbitral tribunal that upheld the Philippines’ case and invalidated China’s nine-dash-line declare over a lot of the South China Sea 9 years in the past was convened beneath the United Nations Conference on the Regulation of the Sea, to which Beijing is a signatory.
Synthetic concrete islands
By the point Manila, then beneath President Benigno Aquino III’s administration, courageously haled China earlier than a world courtroom, Beijing had already seized elements of the West Philippine Sea, most notably Scarborough Shoal or Bajo de Masinloc, a conventional fishing floor simply off Zambales for generations of Filipinos in addition to neighboring Asian international locations.
Within the succeeding years, it could seize increasingly options within the space, turning reefs and atolls into synthetic concrete islands bristling with army {hardware} in a bid to venture its superpower affect means past its shorelines.
The harm that every one that dredging, landfill, and building has executed to the marine surroundings has been immense, and one which immediately impacts the Filipino folks’s patrimony for generations to return.
In keeping with the College of the Philippines Marine Science Institute in 2019, the Philippines could also be shedding about P33.1 billion yearly as a consequence of harm being inflicted on the reef ecosystem within the space. A December 2023 examine by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative echoed that disturbing discovering, noting that China has been liable for as a lot as 75 % of the devastation wrought on the realm’s marine surroundings for a few decade now.
Large clam harvesting
Not solely has it destroyed round 19 sq. km of coral reefs, however from the rampant big clam harvesting alone executed by Chinese language fishermen, some 16,535 acres of coral reefs have been broken, whereas coral reefs have shrunk by 16 % over the past 10 years. In 2024, Filipino fishermen additionally complained that their Chinese language counterparts had been utilizing cyanide in Scarborough Shoal, reportedly “to forestall Filipino fishing boats [from fishing] within the space.”
The most recent outrage includes a Chinese language vessel that, after working aground in waters close to Pag-asa Island on June 7, deployed not the standard plain anchor however a parachute anchor that resulted in vital harm to 464.96 sq. meters of coral reefs price over P11 million.
Since Pag-Asa Island is a part of Palawan, the Palawan Council for Sustainable Improvement is pushing for penalties to be imposed on the Chinese language vessel beneath the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 and the Wildlife Useful resource Conservation and Safety Act, with the Division of Overseas Affairs to press the case earlier than Beijing.
However that transfer is unlikely to prosper, given China’s smug foreign-policy posture of ignoring all Philippine complaints and calls for relating to the egregious conduct its Coast Guard and maritime militia has demonstrated within the WPS, from relentlessly harassing Filipino fishermen, analysis ships, and Navy personnel to destroying huge swaths of the marine surroundings with impunity.
Wanton environmental destruction
A gaggle of retired Philippine officers had tried in March 2019 to actual accountability from China by suing Chinese language President Xi Jinping for his nation’s wanton environmental destruction within the Philippines’ unique financial zone. However that go well with by the late former international secretary Albert del Rosario and former ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales was rejected by the Worldwide Felony Court docket for lack of jurisdiction, since China isn’t an ICC member.
If the Marcos administration is critical about gathering and constructing a powerful file on China’s sustained misconduct within the WPS, it wants to check that earlier setback so it could have a extra strong authorized case earlier than a world tribunal.
At any charge, a proper grievance that brings worldwide consideration to China’s brazen actions has change into increasingly crucial, as day-after-day brings contemporary information of one more willful act of hostility and/or destruction by that nation in our territory.
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The world must see the reality. Time to confront Beijing in courtroom—once more.
