Spratlys probe, JPEPA vote set on April 28--Santiago

By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: March 09, 2008

MANILA, Philippines--The Senate inquiry into the controversial Spratlys agreement among the Philippines, China, and Vietnam, as well as the committee report on the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, will be taken up on April 28, when Congress resumes its session after the Holy Week break.

This was revealed by Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, chairperson of the Senate foreign relations committee, in a press statement sent by e-mail to media outfits Sunday.

Congress is set to adjourn for its Holy Week break this week.

At the same time, Santiago warned against turning the protests against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo into protests against China. She said that Philippine-China relations should not be dragged into the political fray.

She pointed out that China has extended preferential loans to the Philippines for various development programs, and is now the main financial provider for Southeast Asia, ahead of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and aid programs from the United States and Japan.

"The anti-Arroyo campaign should not be turned into an anti-China campaign. We should consign power plays to the domestic arena. International relations and diplomacy are too important to our national interest to be used as partisan political ploys. It takes decades to build up good interstate relations," said the senator.

Santiago, who has just arrived from her campaign for the post of judge of the International Court of Justice, said the Senate inquiry into Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) signed in 2005 will probably be assigned to her committee and the blue-ribbon committee.

She said that while the JMSU raises the issue of possible violation of the constitutional provision on Philippine sovereignty or jurisdiction over defined national territory, "a mere scientific or technical cooperation agreement, which does not diminish or threaten Philippine sovereignty or jurisdiction, is constitutional."

The JMSU will collect data and information on the potential oil and gas reserves in the area, planned to last for three years, at the cost of $15 million.

Citing the 1992 ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea, she said ASEAN foreign ministers resolved, "without prejudicing the sovereignty and jurisdiction of countries having direct interests in the area, to explore the possibility of cooperation in the South China Sea relating to the safety of maritime navigation and communication, protection against pollution in the marine environment."

Santiago said the 1992 Declaration was followed by the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, which she said "is merely a political declaration, without binding legal force, seeking to turn a sea of disputes into a sea of cooperation, pursuant to the policy of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiao Ping."

On JPEPA, she said she will release the full committee report recommending conditional concurrence with the treaty also on April 28.

"Ordinarily, a committee report is only two pages, bearing the signatures of committee members. But this time my committee report will be so extensive that it will be a bound volume. JPEPA is an extraordinary treaty, raising significant issues of constitutional and international law," she said.

Santiago said that JPEPA committee report will comprise at least four documents: the standard format with the signatures of nearly all 23 senators who are members of the two committees; the draft Senate resolution setting out the conditions for concurrence; the report on the constitutional and legal issues filed by herself as chairperson of the foreign relations committee; and the report on the trade and industry issues to be filed by Senator Manuel Roxas II as chairperson of the trade and commerce committee.

Explaining the delay in Senate action on the JPEPA, the senator said she finished JPEPA hearings in November last year, but Senator Edgardo Angara requested additional hearings that took another month.

"In January, the Senate could not take up JPEPA because the budget always takes priority. In February, it was overtaken by the NBN [national broadband network] probe. This March, there is an extended Congress break. That is why April, when session resumes, is the earliest date available," she said.

Santiago said she hopes Japan will accept the conditions, without resubmitting the JPEPA to the Japanese Diet or parliament.

"The constitutional issues are paramount. Hence, the Senate should ensure that the Supreme Court will not declare JPEPA unconstitutional. If we do not take scrupulous care in the Senate and the court declares it unconstitutional, such declaration of unconstitutionality will not be a valid defense, if Japan later sues the Philippines for nonperformance of contract obligation. This is a provision of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties," the senator explained.

Santiago said she will be abroad until November this year for her campaign to the ICJ.
But Santiago said she plans to be in Manila when session resumes in April, so that she can deliver her JPEPA sponsorship speech and defend it, as well as preside over the Spratly Islands hearing, before resuming her hectic campaign schedule abroad.