Filipinos are given a peek into the foreign policy of Vice President Leni Robredo if she wins as president in May 2022 after she pushed for the Philippines to lead the drafting and signing of a binding Code of Conduct (COC) with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the contested waters of the West Philippine Sea.
During the second round of the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) PiliPinas Debates 2022, Robredo admitted the challenges of creating a COC when it is “innate” in other countries to oppose it because of their relationship with China.
Robredo agreed with fellow presidential candidates Jose Montemayor Jr., Ernesto Abella, and Norberto Gonzales who also commented about the same issue.
Montemayor cited Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia as Asean countries indebted to China and the reason for the discord within the regional organization.
“Pero sa aking palagay, iyon bansa natin, ‘yung Pilipinas dapat talaga ang mamuno nito dahil tayo ‘yung may (But in my opinion, our country, the Philippines should lead here because we have the) arbitral ruling,” Robredo said during the rebuttal part of the debate.
“At kailangan nile-leverage natin ‘yung (And we should be leveraging that) arbitral ruling na ‘yun para kumbinsihin iyong mga kasama natin sa Asean na patuloy na ipaglaban ito (to convince our co-members in the Asean to continue this fight),” she added.
READ: This is how Robredo will resolve issue of PH maritime security
The 10-member ASEAN agreed on a Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in 2003, but progress on a COC has been slow.
The COC was supposed to be a more binding regional framework that will establish rules and standards for regional peace and stability.
The international community has been pushing for a COC due to the long-running escalating disputes in the contested waters. At the center of that dispute is China and its sweeping claims of the resource-rich waters.
In 2016, the Philippines won an arbitral ruling filed by the late President Benigno Aquino III before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague.
However, President Duterte’s administration set aside the ruling, choosing instead to befriend China amid the continuous intrusions.