Carpio persists in lying about arbitration ruling vs China
TO be honest, I find it a sad commentary on our Supreme Court as an institution that a person like Antonio Carpio, who served as justice there for 17 years and purportedly wrote important court decisions, continues to ignore the facts, and because of his pro-United States stance, chooses to fan the embers of anti-Chinese sentiment in the country.
He has been doing this by spreading lies about the decision on an arbitration case that the Philippines brought against China over our disputes in the South China Sea.
In a recent article in his favorite newspaper, Carpio insists that the arbitration panel ruled that Subi (Zamora) Reef is part of our sovereign territory. The Chinese have, since the turn of the century, claimed Subi Reef and have occupied it since 1988, and have reclaimed land to build massive installations on it right after the Philippines filed its arbitration suit against China in 2013. We claim it as one of the features of our Kalayaan Island Group, which President Marcos annexed into our territory in 1978.
Carpio struggled to extract this claim by pointing out in his article: “The tribunal categorically declared that Subi Reef is part of the territorial sea of Thitu Island, which is also known as Pag-asa Island, the largest island occupied by the Philippines in the Spratlys.”
He argued: “Paragraph 373 of the award declared…that ‘Subi Reef would fall within the territorial sea of Thitu as extended by basepoints on the low-tide elevations of the reefs to the west of the island’.” (more…)