PNoy to push int'l arbitration on Spratlys dispute

President Benigno Aquino III will be pushing for an international arbitration on the Spratlys territorial dispute when he visits China later this year, despite Beijing's earlier opposition to the idea. “I think that is the only recourse left open to us," the President said Friday at a press briefing after the awarding of housing units to military and police personnel in Calamba, Laguna. The foreign affairs departments of the Philippines and Beijing are finalizing the schedule for Aquino’s state visit to China this year. Asked if he would reiterate the Philippine government’s proposal for international arbitration, the President said "yes." Earlier this week, China rejected the Philippines’ suggestion to elevate the dispute to the United Nation's International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said the country is more willing to settle the Spratlys issue “through direct negotiations between directly concerned countries" than in the UN-backed panel. Aquino said the Philippine government wants to establish first who precisely is in the right when it comes to the definition of the rights imbued under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). “So where do you go? You don’t actually go to China to ask them to define what the Philippine rights are as far as the West Philippine Sea is concerned. You have to go to the body where everybody is a signatory practically to, and that is the UN, and specifically the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea," he said. The Philippines has accused China of intruding into its territory, particularly near the Reed Bank off Palawan province, several times in the past months, basing the information on reports from the military. The Spratlys, which covers major shipping lanes in the West Philippine Sea, is composed of a cluster of islands, reefs, and atolls rich in marine resources and believed to contain huge deposits of oil and natural gas. The group of islands is claimed in whole and in part by China, Taiwan Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines. — LBG, GMA News