The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) has called on the government to ensure that the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is protected against foreign nations, including China.

In a statement issued Thursday, May 27, the IBP Board of Governors’ call was addressed to “all instrumentalities of the Philippine State, including the Executive Department, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Congress, the Judiciary, the constitutional commissions, and the local government units.”

The IBP said “the Philippine Constitution imposes upon all instrumentalities of the Philippine State the legal obligation to ‘protect the nation’s marine wealth in its archipelagic waters, territorial sea, and exclusive economic zone, and reserve its use and enjoyment exclusively to Filipino citizens.’”

Thus, it said, the government should uphold “the legal declarations in the Arbitral Award of 12 July 2016 that China has repeatedly violated the exclusive sovereign rights of the Republic of the Philippines to the Philippine EEZ, and making clear that such arbitral award is not a mere piece of paper fit only to be thrown in a waste basket.”

It pointed out that the government should make it clear that “Chinese and other foreign nationals cannot fish in the Philippine EEZ as its use and enjoyment is reserved exclusively to Filipino citizens” and that “any physical possession of the Philippine EEZ by China is unlawful.”

“The People’s Republic of China has repeatedly violated the exclusive sovereign rights of the Republic of the Philippines by unlawfully claiming large portions of the Philippine EEZ based on China’s nine-dash line map, illegally preventing Filipino fishermen from fishing in the Philippine EEZ, wantonly destroying the marine environment in the Philippine EEZ, and unlawfully constructing artificial islands in the Philippine EEZ,” it said.

The Philippines is “a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which established the Philippine EEZ under international law and affirmed our exclusive sovereign right to the natural resources, artificial islands, the marine environment, and scientific research in the Philippine EEZ,” it stressed.

It pointed out that the Philippines, on July 12, 2016, even “won the compulsory arbitration against China pursuant to UNCLOS, and obtained an Arbitral Award declaring that indeed China has repeatedly violated the exclusive sovereign rights of the Republic of the Philippines to the Philippine EEZ.”