Baselines bills must be studied — Santiago

MANILA, Philippines - Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago on Friday recommended that the pending bills that seek to redefine the country’s territorial boundaries be given a lower priority as a "complete, scientific, and scholarly study and analysis of the impact of the archipelagic doctrine on our national territory" is needed before discussing the pending bills. In a joint hearing of the Foreign Affairs and the National Defense and Security committees, Ms. Santiago urged the organization of a Joint Commission on National Territory stating that it would be a complex problem if the Philippines declared itself an archipelagic state without studying what would be the consequences of the action. She noted that if the country draws the territorial boundaries and claim ownership of the disputed Kalayaan Group of Islands (KIG) or the Spratlys, "it would be considered an offensive act and naturally a source of irritancy from our co-signers if we don’t have enough expertise to tackle legal [issues]." According to Ms. Santiago, the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs under the Department of Foreign Affairs and the National Mapping Authority under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources have "reached a consensus that before we even we try to discuss the pending bills proposed by the House of Representatives and the Senate regarding archipelagic baselines in the Philippines, we must study the matter very carefully because it has many unintended consequences." House Bill 3216 was deferred for third and final reading while Senate Bill 1467 was pending at the committee level. Both measures seek to include the Spratlys off Palawan and the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea as part of the baselines. The only problem now is "whether the Office of Maritime and Ocean Affairs of the Office of the President would support the establishment of the commission or will claim the commission to operate under them," she said. Ms. Santiago said that she has no objection if the Commission on National Territory be an executive agency is under the CMOA or legislative in character as she had proposed. "The question is should we have a commission on national territory that is it be legislative like what I proposed (in the joint commission) or executive under CMOA." Meanwhile, Merlin M. Magallona, former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law, said, "The importance of meeting the deadline is that if we don’t meet [it], we might lose our extended shelf." — Bernard U. Allauigan, with a report from Marielle L. Medina, BusinessWorld