Philippines claims Benham Rise, SSSB = Spratly Islands, Scarborough Shoal, Sabah, Benham Rise Options

[dreiiftw]

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2009/a...090413top6.html

Philippines files claim over
Benham Rise with UN body
By Tessa Jamandre, Vera Files

The Philippines has filed before the United Nations a claim over Benham Rise, an extinct volcanic ridge off t­he east coast of Luzon, beating the May 13 deadline for states to submit claims over their extended continental shelves.

The Philippine delegation deposited the claim with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in New York City on April 8, making clear it was only a “partial submission.”

This means that other submissions, including those over disputed territories, would be made later. The disputed Kalayaan Island Group, which part of the Spratly Islands, and Scarborough Shoal are also said to be part of the country’s extended continental shelf and are believed to contain oil, natural gas, minerals and polymetals.

By filing the claim over Benham Rise, which is undisputed territory, the government has stopped the clock on the UN deadline and buys time to sort out border issues with its neighbors over the Kalayaan islands and Scarborough Shoal.

“As a gesture of good faith, the Philippines makes this partial submission in order to avoid creating or provoking maritime boundary disputes where there are none, or exacerbating them where they may exist, in areas where maritime boundaries have not yet been delimited between opposite or adjacent coastal States,” said the government in its partial submission.

The UN defines the continental shelf as the “the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea” up to 200 nautical miles from the archipelagic baseline. A conti­nental shelf that goes farther than 200 nautical miles is called the extended continental shelf.

Claim to Benham Rise
The Philippine claim over Ben­ham Rise was prepared long before Congress enacted Republic Act 9522, or the Archipelagic Baselines Law, whose constitutionality is being questioned in the Supreme Court.

The Benham Rise Region is bounded by the Philippine Basin on the north and east, and by Luzon on the west and south. The submission asserted that Benham Rise is an extension of the Philippines’ continental shelf based on seismic, magnetic, gravity and other geological data collected.

The executive summary of the Philippine submission said the baselines used in the partial submission conform with the requirements of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and were used as the basis for delineating the maritime territorial and jurisdictional zones, including the continental shelf.

It was Philippine Ambassador to the UN Hilario Davide who filed the country’s partial submission with the commission. Among those who traveled to New York for the submission were lawyer Henry Bensurto, secretary general of the Center for Maritime and Ocean Affairs of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, and Ambassador Minerva Falcon, head of the department’s Foreign Service Institute.

A Philippine delegation is again expected to travel to New York to deposit the rest of the submissions in August, when the commission meets en banc.

Within UN rules

Bensurto said in an interview before leaving for New York that UN rules allow a partial submission. The government’s executive summary quoted the UN commission rules of procedure that “partial submissions may there­fore be made by a single coastal State for areas of its continental shelf that are not the subject of a maritime boundary dispute or a future maritime boundary delimitation.”

Galo Carrera-Hurtado of Mexico, a commissioner of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, helped the Philippines prepare its submission.

The Benham Rise Region is not subject to any maritime boundary disputes, claims or controversies, the executive summary said.

The country’s west coast facing the South China Sea is another matter. The Archipelagic Baselines Law has redrawn the country’s outer limits and from there, its extended continental shelf and exclusive economic zones overlap with Japan, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Palau, Malaysia and Indonesia.

All these overlaps projected from the newly enacted baseline law will have to be subject to border delimitation agreements before a complete and final submission to the UN is made.

Bensurto said that if an agreement is reached in border talks, then the Philippines could submit a claim unilaterally or jointly with the country concerned.

“For the controversial areas we don’t give up any claim, but we allow time, process, diplomacy or whatever tools are available to resolve it because anyway that is not going to be subject to any deadline,” he said. “So we just . . . do a partial submission in an area that is noncontroversial, nondisputed because if we insist to submit on contested areas nothing will happen, it will just be shelved.”

This post has been edited by dreiiftw: Apr 13 2009, 07:42 PM

[Suzuka00]

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2009/a...090413top6.html

Philippines files claim over
Benham Rise with UN body
By Tessa Jamandre, Vera Files

The Philippines has filed before the United Nations a claim over Benham Rise, an extinct volcanic ridge off t­he east coast of Luzon, beating the May 13 deadline for states to submit claims over their extended continental shelves.

The Philippine delegation deposited the claim with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in New York City on April 8, making clear it was only a “partial submission.”

This means that other submissions, including those over disputed territories, would be made later. The disputed Kalayaan Island Group, which part of the Spratly Islands, and Scarborough Shoal are also said to be part of the country’s extended continental shelf and are believed to contain oil, natural gas, minerals and polymetals.

By filing the claim over Benham Rise, which is undisputed territory, the government has stopped the clock on the UN deadline and buys time to sort out border issues with its neighbors over the Kalayaan islands and Scarborough Shoal.

“As a gesture of good faith, the Philippines makes this partial submission in order to avoid creating or provoking maritime boundary disputes where there are none, or exacerbating them where they may exist, in areas where maritime boundaries have not yet been delimited between opposite or adjacent coastal States,” said the government in its partial submission.

The UN defines the continental shelf as the “the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend beyond its territorial sea” up to 200 nautical miles from the archipelagic baseline. A conti­nental shelf that goes farther than 200 nautical miles is called the extended continental shelf.

Claim to Benham Rise
The Philippine claim over Ben­ham Rise was prepared long before Congress enacted Republic Act 9522, or the Archipelagic Baselines Law, whose constitutionality is being questioned in the Supreme Court.

The Benham Rise Region is bounded by the Philippine Basin on the north and east, and by Luzon on the west and south. The submission asserted that Benham Rise is an extension of the Philippines’ continental shelf based on seismic, magnetic, gravity and other geological data collected.

The executive summary of the Philippine submission said the baselines used in the partial submission conform with the requirements of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and were used as the basis for delineating the maritime territorial and jurisdictional zones, including the continental shelf.

It was Philippine Ambassador to the UN Hilario Davide who filed the country’s partial submission with the commission. Among those who traveled to New York for the submission were lawyer Henry Bensurto, secretary general of the Center for Maritime and Ocean Affairs of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, and Ambassador Minerva Falcon, head of the department’s Foreign Service Institute.

A Philippine delegation is again expected to travel to New York to deposit the rest of the submissions in August, when the commission meets en banc.

Within UN rules

Bensurto said in an interview before leaving for New York that UN rules allow a partial submission. The government’s executive summary quoted the UN commission rules of procedure that “partial submissions may there­fore be made by a single coastal State for areas of its continental shelf that are not the subject of a maritime boundary dispute or a future maritime boundary delimitation.”

Galo Carrera-Hurtado of Mexico, a commissioner of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, helped the Philippines prepare its submission.

The Benham Rise Region is not subject to any maritime boundary disputes, claims or controversies, the executive summary said.

The country’s west coast facing the South China Sea is another matter. The Archipelagic Baselines Law has redrawn the country’s outer limits and from there, its extended continental shelf and exclusive economic zones overlap with Japan, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Palau, Malaysia and Indonesia.

All these overlaps projected from the newly enacted baseline law will have to be subject to border delimitation agreements before a complete and final submission to the UN is made.

Bensurto said that if an agreement is reached in border talks, then the Philippines could submit a claim unilaterally or jointly with the country concerned.

“For the controversial areas we don’t give up any claim, but we allow time, process, diplomacy or whatever tools are available to resolve it because anyway that is not going to be subject to any deadline,” he said. “So we just . . . do a partial submission in an area that is noncontroversial, nondisputed because if we insist to submit on contested areas nothing will happen, it will just be shelved.”

the claim should include orchid island.

[dreiiftw]

the claim should include orchid island.

yup we own that island too but it is now under taiwan.

[Suzuka00]

yup we own that island too but it is now under taiwan.

there should be more pinoys who should settle there especially ivatans so it can be reclaimed.

[AlfonsoCastro]

*expects some chicom to claim that Benham Rise is chinese by the historical proof of a Ming junk present.........and a little $hit smudge at some old Ming maps.*

[godamit]

i hate these commie fu-kers, i wanna genocide their rat cockroach population.

[silangan]

i hate these commie fu-kers, i wanna genocide their rat cockroach population.

Well, let's cool down. Mainland China is one of our biggest investors. Though we sometimes have conflicting interests, but that should not strain the good relationship we have with this neighbor of ours. I know this can be settled well. Let's project a "friendly country" image, then you will be surprised money will start coming in.

[Pogpog]

yup we own that island too but it is now under taiwan.

what?!? i thought taiwan is ours too...we should get it back. damn commies.

[Suzuka00]

what?!? i thought taiwan is ours too...we should get it back. damn commies.

orchid island is filipino because a filipino tribe/ethnicity migrated there,the yami and their language belongs to the philippine language group,which wiki says so.

This post has been edited by Suzuka00: Apr 19 2009, 01:12 PM

[Pogpog]

orchid island is filipino because a filipino tribe/ethnicity migrated there,the yami and their language belongs to the philippine language group,which wiki says so.

great! now we have a claim to get those back, do you have any proof like some "ancient" -made-up historical account to back up our claims? even a photoshopped map would do i think, the chinese are doing it, why can't we?

[silangan]

In Recto. They make documents look like the real ones.

[orient]

In Recto. They make documents look like the real ones.

Indeed

[Suzuka00]

great! now we have a claim to get those back, do you have any proof like some "ancient" -made-up historical account to back up our claims? even a photoshopped map would do i think, the chinese are doing it, why can't we?

it's the most legitimate claim actually.

The Tao (traditional Chinese: 達悟族), commonly known by the misnomer Yami (雅美), are a Taiwanese aboriginal people, native to tiny outlying Orchid Island in Taiwan. The Tao are an Austronesian people linguistically and culturally closer to the Ivatan people of the Batanes islands in the Philippines than to other aboriginal peoples on the main island of Taiwan. The word "Tao" (pronounced Ta-o) means "person" or "people" in both the Tao language and all Philippine languages. The Tao people are traditionally good at making canoes, which is a symbol of their tribe.
In the year 2000 the Yami numbered 3,872. This was approximately 1% of Taiwan's total indigenous population. [1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_people

[martin_nuke]

Forget about Sabah, Orchid Islands, Marianas, Sulawesi, etc... because its already too late and hard to claim those legally. The Philippines must just concentrate and fight for Spratleys and Benham Rise because the Philippines have a strong and legal position to claim those territories at this moment.

Well, let's cool down. Mainland China is one of our biggest investors. Though we sometimes have conflicting interests, but that should not strain the good relationship we have with this neighbor of ours. I know this can be settled well. Let's project a "friendly country" image, then you will be surprised money will start coming in.

The Philippines does not actually need China because the Philippines is a self reliant, resourceful and independent country. China will only benefit from its investments like building large malls then selling China products and will the Filipino benefit from it?

This post has been edited by martin_nuke: Apr 20 2009, 06:58 PM

[Ek-ek]

Let us claim all other nearby islands!!!!

so more than 7, 100 islands during low tide.

[Suzuka00]

regarding sabah
sabah does not belong to the philippines but orchid island and sulawesi is a part of our cultural sphere,iyon ang dapat nating iclaim wag nating iclaim ang lugar na hindi naman sa atin and don't share the same culture.

let's support the filipino community in sabah instead.

This post has been edited by Suzuka00: Apr 21 2009, 01:00 AM

[AlfonsoCastro]

WHo cares about Sabah, I mean hell do you really want to join a still third world majority christian country or be with a country thats alreayd goddam connected to you plus they have one of the tallest towers to boot.

Wait, what do you want to do? Pull of a Blitzkrieg on them like in '39, man will that be funny as fu-k, sure, try it with bronco and cessna planes.

[orient]

The Philippines does not actually need China because the Philippines is a self reliant, resourceful and independent country. China will only benefit from its investments like building large malls then selling China products and will the Filipino benefit from it?

In this global economy, no country even the US or China can be self-reliant

Kung tutuo ang sinasabi mo e di sana mayaman na ang Pilipinas.

This post has been edited by orient: Apr 21 2009, 07:13 PM

[Ek-ek]

WHo cares about Sabah, I mean hell do you really want to join a still third world majority christian country or be with a country thats alreayd goddam connected to you plus they have one of the tallest towers to boot.

Wait, what do you want to do? Pull of a Blitzkrieg on them like in '39, man will that be funny as fu-k, sure, try it with bronco and cessna planes.

Taipei 101 had dethrone Malaysia's petronas tower, Philippines will have its own version of a tower !!!!

[martin_nuke]