VANCOUVER, Canada – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Saturday (Canada time) admitted that he is “worried” that his successor might take a different approach in handling the West Philippine Sea (WPS) issue.
In a media interview before returning to Manila after his four-day official visit to Canada, Marcos stressed the need to be consistent in protecting and defending the WPS.
Marcos also emphasized the importance of upholding the 2016 arbitral ruling that favored the Philippines against China regarding long-standing maritime disputes.
READ: Marcos thanks Canada for support of rules-based order in SCS
“Well, of course, it’s a very important issue for the Philippines, if you’re asking me if I’m worried that the policy of the Philippines will change after I leave office, of course, I am. Because it’s almost, not quite, but it’s almost an existential issue for us,” he said.
“So we really have to be consistent in that. And I think the rightness in our positioning, in terms of the way we position the Philippines in our foreign policy vis-à-vis the arbitral agreement, arbitral award is validated by countries like Canada [that] support it and see it as simply an enforcement of international law and the defense of our territorial integrity and the exercise of our sovereign rights within our sovereign territory,” he added.
On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, constituted under the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, dismissed as illegal China’s so-called nine-dash line in the vital sea lane.
The invisible demarcation, which has since expanded into a 10-dash line, covers and lays territorial claim over a huge portion of the South China Sea, including the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the WPS.
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