Vice President Leni Robredo on Monday, July 12, hopes that the Philippines can rediscover its national pride in pursuing its legitimate interests and rights in the West Philippine Sea despite the “rubble of cowardice and neglect” that put aside the 2016 arbitration win against China.
Robredo lamented that the current administration failed to invoke the arbitration win awarded by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague before international forums.
“Today marks 5 years of missed opportunities regarding the West Philippine Sea. Since then (2016), national leadership has yet to fully flex the ruling as an instrument to pursue our national interests, failing to invoke it in strong enough terms in the forums that matter most,” she said.
“Today’s commemoration is a reminder, a challenge, and a promise: That if only we can remember, if only we can unite, if only we can rediscover our spirit and once again stand for what is right— we will find, beneath the rubble of cowardice and neglect, our courage, our dignity, and our national pride,” she added.
The arbitration win at The Hague was the product of the Aquino administration, but the victory was handed down on July 12, 2016, barely two weeks after President Duterte assumed power.
The President has largely cast aside the arbitration win, at once referring to it as a “scrap of paper” one can throw in the trash can. His defeatist and friendly stance with China earned him the ire of critics here and abroad, but he maintains his love for Beijing’s communist party and is vocal of his admiration of Chinese President Xi Jinping despite Beijing’s creeping and expansive activities in the hotly disputed resource-rich region that intimidated local fisherfolk.
READ: Arbitral ruling on West PH Sea just a scrap of paper, Duterte says
The vice president noted that many fishermen “remain unable to enter areas that have been the source of livelihood for generations of Filipinos.”
On Sunday, the featured guest on her radio show over dzXL was a fisherman from Masinloc, Zambales. Ernie Egana said since 2018, they were unable to enter the Scarborough Shoal (Panatag Shoal) because there were Chinese Coast Guard vessels there that prohibit them from fishing.
Robredo alleged that “those who bully their way into our waters have been treated with deference, and at times, subservience.”
READ: Robredo says gov't must protect fisherfolk in EEZ
But the lady official stressed that the ruling at The Hague is a definitive part of international law.
“It cannot be erased from the history books, and cannot be denied despite the unending lies spewed forth by a formidable machinery of disinformation,” she said.
“Filing the case before the tribunal— standing up for what is right, against the economic and military might of a world power— yielded the admiration and respect of the entire world,” Robredo added.