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No. 2007-02

Institute of Bangsamoro Studies

The Bangsamoro Territory:

Explanatory Argument for Territorial Waters

Michael O. Mastura


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Institute of Bangsamoro StudiesOccasional Paper No. 2007-02December 2007

The views expressed in the Occasional Papers are those of the author(s) and not necessarily of the IBS.

The Bangsamoro Territory: Explanatory Argument for Territorial WatersBy Michael O. Mastura

Datu Michael O. Mastura is a lawyer, historian and politician. He is the president of SultanKudarat Islamic Academy Foundation College and twice elected representative of the firstcongressional district of the Province of Maguindanao and Cotabato City to the PhilippineCongress. He was also elected delegate to the 1971 Philippine Constitutional Convention.He is an accomplished author who published several books and articles in national andinternational journals. Atty. Mastura is a member of the peace panel of the Moro IslamicLiberation Front (MILF) negotiating peace with the Government of the Republic of thePhilippines.

The Institute of Bangsamoro Studies (IBS) is a non-profit and non-government institution thefunctions of which are to carry out research on Bangsamoro history, culture, politics, economy andcontemporary affairs; conduct trainings to capacitate the youth, women and the poor; and rendercommunity services to poor and conflict affected communities.

Institute of Bangsamoro StudiesHadji Daud Bldg., Campo MuslimCotabato City 9600, Philippines

Telefax: +63-64 4213551 Email: [email protected]

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mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Institute of Bangsamoro StudiesOccasional Paper No. 2007-02

Michael O. MasturaThe Bangsamoro Territory:

Explanatory Argument for Territorial Waters

Brief Background

The nationally defined territory of the Philippines consists of the public domain

which is made up of areas that were ceded by Spain to the United States in the Treaty of

Paris of 1898. The operative stipulation concerning the cession reads in part: Spain

cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands, andcomprehending the islands within certain lines drawn along specified degrees longitude

East and latitude North.

There is opposition to the Philippine claim of sovereignty over its inter-island

waters to the effect that the waters comprehended within the imaginary lines mentioned

in the Treaty were not included. This view holds that only the islands were transferredbut not the intervening waters.1 In this context, the Bangsamoro people more so have

raised the question of the lack of plebiscitary consent on their part as the chief flaw in theframework of cession.

International law attaches a portion of maritime territory consisting of what thelaw called territorial waters to States whose land is washed by the sea. Beyond its land

domain and its internal waters that belt of territorial sea adjacent to the coast, which is

described as territorial sea, forms part of the coastal State. In regard to this point,Philippine stand as to the extent of the territorial sea to be fixed as limit is open.

The Philippines is not a party to the Geneva Convention on the Territorial Sea and

the Contiguous Zone. But it signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS) on 10 December 1982 and ratified it on 8 May 1984. The Philippine

Government adopted in 1992 a national policy on the Law of the Sea based on UNCLOS

although the Convention became effective only on 16 November 1994.

1. The Problem of Delimitation Reformulated

Within the law of-the-sea concept are included the definition of a states territorialwaters, the right of states to fish the oceans and to mine underneath the seas, and the right

of states to control navigation. Because of some problems on the breadth or limits of the

1 Territorial delimitation has preoccupied debates on the National Territory during the Constitutional

Conventions that drafted the 1935 Constitution and 1973 Constitution. The expressions in the 1973

Constitution make no reference to treaties and define the country as an archipelago and its internal waters.

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territorial sea, the Philippine delegation proposed that it be an exemption to the 12-milerule. Thus territorial waters are claimed under historic and legal title.

Under the Convention, a major change is its extension of a States territorialwaters from 3 to 12 nautical miles. In case of an archipelagic State, it may apply a system

of baselines to its archipelagic waters the length of which shall not exceed 100 nauticalmiles, except for enclosing up to 125 sea miles.

A definitive determination of the extent of Philippine territorial sea and of its

exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is vital in positing a legal regime. The most crucial issue

is whether to perpetuate errors in old delimitation of the boundary lines of thePhilippines:

Should the national territory definition qualify a new breadth of its territorialwaters pursuant to the Treaty Limits?

Should the island-country establish new limits of territorial sea in conformitywith the provisions of the UNCLOS?

There is an imperative to redefine the Philippine archipelagic baselines from

which the territorial waters are measured.2

First of all, the Treaty Limits that almost allother countries reject3 still form the basis of definition of territory in the Philippine

Constitution. In the second place, its system of enclosure increases that national

territory approximately 2.8 fold.

Considerations: Arguably the Treaty of Paris applies only to the islands. And sowaters within the baseline are internal waters. It follows that waters at the outermost

point of the straight baselines up to the Treaty Limitscorresponding to the

constitutional delineationare territorial waters.

2. Juridical Status of Sea Areas

The delimitation of sea areas has always an international aspect (Anglo-

Norwegian Fisheries Case, I.C.J. Reports 1951). The extension of State competence over

the coastal waters, marine areas, and special rights within the maritime domain has

evolved practices of States with legal implications. The extent of the maritime territoryof the Philippines was stated in the Note Verbale of 7 March 1955 to the UN Secretary

General before the adoption of the four Conventions of 1958.

2Ambassador Rodolfo C. Severino, in The Philippines Foreign Relations: Threats and Opportunities

published by ISEAS, 2003 argues: To begin substantive negotiations on Philippine territorial or maritime

disputes or overlapping EEZs is to determine the extent of the territorial sea.3 Justice Jorge R. Coquia records that, except for Tonga, no state agreed to the Philippine claim of

territorial waters based on the Treaty of Paris when it was referred to by the Philippine delegation at the

First UN Conference on the Law of the Sea in 1958.

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Significantly different in meaning from the term maritime law is the conceptualframeworklaw of the sea. Maritime law deals with jurisprudence that governs ships and

shipping whereas the latter refers to matters of public international law, including the

definition of a states territorial waters.

The territorial sea differs from the internal waters in that the former is subject toan international right of innocent passage at least in time of peace. The legal status ofterritorial sea also extends to the seabed and subsoil under them and to the airspace above

them. Ownership of petroleum in situ has to be determined. The Convention provides the

legal basis for undertaking offshore petroleum operations beyond the territorial waters of

a coastal State.

Considerations: The different sea areas claimed by the Philippines in exercise of

its sovereignty as an archipelagic State have their respective juridical status underinternational law. As such, they are subject to a particular international regime discussed

in succeeding pages.

3. Concept of Archipelago

The convention of the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone has described an

island as a naturally-formed area of land, surrounded by water, surrounded by water,which is above water at high tide. Article 121 of UNCLOS adopts this description of an

island. In relation to every nation, if politically independent (or otherwise), it can be

categorized as shown in the Table below.

Table 1 - Category of Islands

Islands are coastal States in

their own right

e.g. United Kingdom, Cuba,

Sri Lanka

Islands fall under jurisdiction of a coastal

State

e.g. Corsica, the Falklands,

Andaman islands

Islands form an archipelagic State e.g. Indonesia, Philippines,

Fiji islands

Contemporary publicists on international law categorize the types of

archipelagoes into:

(1)Coastal archipelagoes situated so close to a mainland that they mayreasonably be considered part and parcel thereof. Thus, they form more or less

an outer coastline from which it is natural to measure the marginal seas.

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(2)Outlying or mid-ocean archipelagoes groups of islands situated out in theocean at such a distance from the coasts of firm land. Thus, they are

considered as an independent whole rather than forming part of the outer

coastline of the mainland.

Considerations: The coastal States may be subdivided into those bordering theenclosed or semi-enclosed seas and coastal states bordering the oceans. At UNCLOSnegotiation, the nonresource side of maritime jurisdiction is addressed by the coastal

States and the archipelagic States such as rules and regulations relating to innocent

passage and passage in transit.

4. The Philippine Territory

The geographical configuration of the Philippine archipelago constitutes a massifor compact formation and a group of islands situated between latitudes 5 and 21, and

between longitudes 117 and 127 degrees. This geographical formation is fringed all

along by a string of islands and islets of varying sizes and shapes that follow a generaldirection and form a continuous row of land formations.

The latitudes and longitudes described in Article III of the 1898 Treaty of Paris

between Spain and the United States and the 1900Treaty concluded at Washington D.C.between the two countries required another Treaty in 1930 between Great Britain and the

United States to fix the boundary lines between North Borneo and the Philippine

Archipelago.

Table 2 - Geographical Data about Territory

Land area of the Philippines is 115,600 square

(statute) miles

87,278 square

nautical miles

Philippine territory described by the International

Treaty Limits

520,700 square

nautical miles

Philippine total baselines area defined under Republic

Act 5446 plus enclosed territorial sea

257,400 square

nautical miles

Philippine policy based on UNCLOS coveringmaritime area up to the 200-mile EEZ

652,800 squarenautical miles

The use of the Treaty Limits as the territorial sea boundary would raise the total

Philippine area to 702,460 square .miles or 530,239 square nautical miles.

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As between two competing ideas of retention or elimination of the National

Territory provision, a constitutional delineation appears necessary for reasons of

jurisdiction over territorial waters. Considered as necessary appurtenances4

of its landterritory, all sea pertaining to the Philippine Archipelago as delimited by municipal Act

and enabling laws are divided into types of waters:

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(1)national or internal waters embrace all the sea areas lying between andconnecting the constituent islands, islets and other land formations of the

archipelago, irrespective of their width or dimension;

(2)marginal belt of water, in addition to its national waters, surrounding the coastof the archipelago viewed as a whole or as a unit in law;

(3)contiguous zones assimilated to territorial or jurisdictional waters for certainspecial purposes, and measured from the outer edge of the marginal belt up to

the treaty limits; and

(4)superjacent waters of the continental shelf or its analogue in an archipelagoextending seaward from the shores but outside the area of the territories of

other countries.

The Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998

Sec. 64. Philippine waters include all bodies of water within the Philippine territory

such as lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, brooks, ponds, swamps, lagoons, gulfs, bays

and seas and other bodies of water now existing or which may hereafter exist in theprovinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays and athe waters around, between and

connecting the islands of the archipelago regardless of their breath and dimensions,

the territorial sea, the sea bed, the insular shelves, and all other waters over which thePhilippines has sovereignty and jurisdiction including the 200-nautical miles

Exclusive Economic Zone and the continental shelf.

Considerations: An important point at this juncture is that no difficulty confronts

the juridical status for most of the superjacent waters of its island shelf that lie inside thearchipelago and accordingly are assimilated into internal waters. Those portions situated

along the outer limits of the archipelago and which extend seawards belong either to the

regime of the territorial sea or to that of the contiguous zone.

4 This phrase appears in the Philippine Missions Note Verbale of March 7th, 1955. For the full text, consult

Yearbook of the Internal Law Commission, 1956, Vol. II, p. 70.5

The sea areas classified into types of waters became the basis of the new definition of national territory

and the validity of the position at the Conference on the Law of the Sea. Ambassador Juan M. Arreglado

submitted a study dealing with the geographical and juridical delimitation of the extent of its territorial

waters to the 1972 Constitutional Convention. The Philippine delegation to the 1958 Conference on the

Law of the Sea composed of Senator Tolentino as chairman and Jorge Bocobo and Arreglado as members.

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5. The Philippine Baselines

There are normal baselines and straight baselines to define the archipelagic

regime of the territorial sea. Article 5 of the Convention says that the normal base linefor measuring the breadth of the territorial sea is the low-water line along the coast. Allwaters within the normal baselines as provided for marked on large-scale charts are

considered inland or internal waters of the Philippines.

The Government of the Philippines with respect to its land domain, archipelagicsea lane passage, and inter-island waters with surrounding land has adopted the

archipelagic method joining appropriate points, in drawing a series of straight baselines

about the external group from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

The Philippine system of straight baselines6 for its territorial sea are defined and

described in R.A. 3046 of 1961, as amended by R.A. 5446 of 1968, to correcttypographical errors.7 Following the archipelagic doctrines, the new baselines proposed

in 1987 diverts from the maritime territorial boundaries defined under the Treaty Limits.

This became necessary to qualify the bases of the Philippine claim to the cluster of

islands and islets in the South China Sea as part of the Philippine territory.

This trend towards extended national jurisdiction is but one aspect of the strategic

drive to assume control over natural resources. Not only the economic argument butstrategic considerations apply:

(1)The emerging law of the sea regime is closely tied to regime change including theapplication of the archipelagic state regime, the twelve-mile territorial sea, the

twenty-four-mile contiguous zone, the 200-mile exclusive economic zone, thecontinental shelf, and the other jurisdictions with regard to marine environment

and scientific research.

(2)The emergence of the concept of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) has helpedto determine the juridical regime in regard to the extent of coastal State and

6 This municipal Act was protested by US Embassy Note No. 836 of May 18, 1961 declaring inter alia

the United States Government could not regard claims based on the present legislation as binding upon it or

its nationals.7The principal sponsor was Senator Arturo M. Tolentino. In 1987, Senator Leticia Ramos Shahani

sponsored a bill (S. No. 206) to redefine the straight archipelagic baseline but it was not passed during the

Eight Congress. The definition of the baselines of the the territorial sea of the Philippine Archipelago as

provided in R.A. No. 5446 is without prejudice to the delineation of the baselines of the territorial sea

around the territory of Sabah, situated in North Borneo, over which the Republic of the Philippines has

acquired dominion and sovereignty (Sec. 2). Thus, Congressman Michael O. Mastura introduced H. No.

4428 to repeal any reference to delineation on Sabah under Section 2 of R.A. 5446 to read: Philippine

negotiating text on boundary delimitations under the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention.

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archipelagic State competence landward side of the baseline as well as seawardfrom which the breath of the territorial sea is measured.

6. Regime of the Archipelagic State

The enclosed seas of the Philippines, including the Sulu Sea, appear as basin seaswithin the submarine platform that connects Mindanao to rest of the constituent islands,separated by shallow barriers or submarine ridges from the Pacific Ocean to the East,

from the South China Sea to the West, and from the Indonesian Seas to the South. The

bottom water of the central seas of the Philippines is not in free communication with that

of any of the above-mentioned seas and ocean.

According to an international boundary study on limits in the seas,8 the Philippine

straight baseline system in effect:

Adopts a method of measurement within its archipelagic waters in drawing a

series of 80 straight baselines about the external group and outermost points.

Closes the important Surigao Strait, Sibutu Passage, Balabac Strait andMindoro Strait as well as the more internal passages through the Philippine

islands.

Encloses the largest body of water, the Sulu Sea, but other significant seas, theMoro Gulf, Mindanao Sea, Sibuyan etc. are also within the system.

In summary, the enclosure system therefore increases the national territory

approximately 2.8 fold. Application of the archipelagic regime extends the territorial sea

and the resulting land to water ratio is approximately 1:1,841.

Figure 1 - Land Area to Territorial Waters Ratio

Straight Baseline of the Philippines

The method of baseline system can be illustrated by area figures and ratios:

Land Area 115,600 square miles Water Space 328,345 square miles

Say: 328,345 - 115,600 = 212,745 square miles or 1:1,841

The use of the Treaty Limits as the territorial sea boundary would raise the total

Philippine area to 702,460 square miles or 530,239 square nautical miles. This approach

increases by more than 2.14 the territory within the baselines.

8Data culled from an analysis of the Philippine straight baselines inInternational Boundary Study, Series

A, Limits in the Seas, No. 33 (March 22, 1973.

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Figure 2 - Land and Internal Waters to Territorial Sea

Treaty Limits of the Philippines

The use of the treaty limits can be illustrated by area figures and ratios:

Land Area 702,460 square miles Territorial Sea 374,115 square miles

Ratio of Land and Internal Waters to Territorial Sea is 1: 1,139

Ratio of Land to Territorial and Internal Waters is approximately 1:5,065

Considerations: As much as the principles for arrangements of rights andinterests of coastal State have been acceptable but outstanding delimitation negotiations

could be carried out where they constitute prejudicial question on the status of the

Bangsamoro homeland and ancestral domain. The Bangsamoro peoples claim isfounded on historic rights and native title and other special circumstances; it is consistentwith UNCLOS.

7. Outstanding Negotiation Issues

The breadth of the territorial seahence, the seaward extent of the territorial

sovereignty of the coastal State or archipelagic Stateis now internationally agreed.

7.1. Extension of Sovereign Authority and Jurisdiction

The doctrine leading to the theory that the seaward limits of territorial sovereigntyshould coincide with and could not exceed the range of shore-based cannon is practically

abandoned in favor of a twelve-mile limit. The three nautical miles range was originally

based on one league that international law set as the width of territorial waters.

Beyond the seaward limits is the domain of the high seas. The principle of

freedom of the seas respects the right to navigate, to fish, to lay cables and pipelines, andthe freedom of overflight. Now it is recognized that coastal State has jurisdictional right

to regulate, police, and adjudicate the territorial waters and the proprietary right to control

and exploit natural resources in those waters and exclude others from them.

The legal status of territorial waters also extends to the seabed and subsoil underthem and to the airspace above them. Attention has always been focused on the

superjacent waters and on the commercial use that could be made of these waters. Inpractice, it amounts to navigation and fishing. So the question of where the jurisdiction

lay over the natural resources underneath the high seas had to be solved before industrycould move into the domain.

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Table 3 Determination of Expanded Jurisdiction

Area of the Philippines including 3 mile

territorial sea about each island is

115,600 square nautical miles.

Whether EEZ would be outside both its

archipelagic waters and its territorial sea

but falls within the Treaty Limits?

Area of the Philippines with 12 miles

territorial sea about each island is

178,000 square nautical miles.

Whether different boundaries of EEZ

would be taken as the same boundaries of

the Contiguous Zone?

Area of the Philippines enclosed in

Baselines plus 12-mile territorial sea

from Baselines is 290,850 squarenautical miles.

Whether different boundaries of EEZ

have to be determined by agreement with

neighboring adjacent coastal State

7.2. The Prolongation Argument

In 1945, America preempted unilaterally to claim the sovereignty over theresources of the subsoil and the seabed of the continental shelf beneath the high seas but

contiguous to the coast of the US. Its proclamation restricts the natural resources

jurisdiction of the US to its continental shelf.

The prolongation argument holds that the continental shelf should be regarded asan extension of the land mass of the coastal State and thus naturally appurtenant to it.Notably this carries enough weight to support and justify the proclaimed jurisdiction.

I.C.J. upheld it in the North Sea Continent Shelf cases (1969).

The 1958 Convention assigns any island a continent shelf. It assigns sovereign

rights over it to coastal State, but not to islands. What regime is to be applied to the

seabed and subsoil or the resources contained therein beyond the twelve-miles?

The limit of the seaward boundary of the continental shelf includes the same

seabed and subsoil beyond the 12-mile territorial sea up to the distance of 200 miles from

the baselines or up to the outer edge of the ocean margins.

The Philippine negotiating position at UNCLOS reiterates the necessary

appurtenances of its submarine platform and land formations. Noticeably Article 1 ofthe 1987 Constitution now mentions the insular shelves and other submarine areas,

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besides the seabed and the subsoil.9

The MILF position is open to production sharingagreement or joint development pact in terms of the environmental aspects and the

internationalization of the extractive industry.

Negotiation Pointers: National regulatory regimes for petroleum may be

categorized by the type of authorization that is provided for. Authorizations take theform of either a license or a contract of work. The manner in which the rights attached toa license or a contract area are described in the basic petroleum law. A government with

a production sharing system does not grant a concession.

Authorization matrix:

Ownership of petroleum in situ Petroleum as occurring under natural

conditions vests in the State on the surface or in the subsoil

Ownership of petroleum after Production license or contract confers

extraction from the reservoir ownership on the holder per termsand conditions

The Petroleum Act of 1949 contained the clause, whether found in, on or underthe surface of dry lands, creeks, rivers, lakes, or other submerged lands within the

territorial waters. The licensing regime was in essence a property law extending the

ownership of land to the mineral resources. Such property right mineral acquisition

rights could be obtained from the public or private owner of the land concerned. The caseof wetlandssuch as the Liguasan marshland of almost 45,000 hectares purported to

hold significant deposits the ownership of petroleumcould be tied to their disposition.

From the point of legal theory, the migratory character of liquid and gaseous petroleumwas correctly posed as a problem on the nature of the ownership of petroleum.

In so far as relevant for the interpretation of the Petroleum Act of 1949, asamended, geologically speaking, the Philippine mission to the First Conference on the

Law of the Sea enunciated its position based on the Note Verbale of March 7, 1955 to the

UN Secretary General.

9Proclamation No. 370, 1968 declares as subjection to the jurisdiction and control of the State all mineral

and other natural resources in the continental shelf of the Philippines. Extended jurisdiction covers the

areas of seabed mining and off-shore petroleum.

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Note Verbale 1955

All natural deposits or occurences of petroleum or natural gas in public and/or private

lands (or other submerged lands) within the territorial waters or on the continental

shelf, or its analogue in an archipelago, from the shores of the Philippines which arenot within the territories of other countries belong inalienably and imprescriptively to

the Philippines, subject to the right of innocent passage of ships of friendly foreign

States over these waters.

The Proclamation of March 20, 1968 has substantially modernized it where the

continental shelf is shared with an adjacent state. In this case the boundary shall be

determined by the Philippines and that state in accordance with legal and equitableprinciples. It is declared the character of the waters above these submarine areas as high

seas and that of the airspace above those waters is not affected by this proclamation.

Prospecting/ Extracting from Reservoir

Petroleum a mixture of liquids and gases is a natural resource that is not fixed at the

place of its generation, unlike other mineral resources that fixed at their place at the

surface or in the subsoil. After generation petroleum migrates and moves through theporous and permeable rock layers of the subsoil. . As a matter of fact the production

operation can be said to start a secondary migration. As soon as wells are drilled from

the surface into a reservoir the petroleum starts flowing into these wells and throughthe tubing inside the wells up to the wellhead at the surface or at the bottom of the sea,

as the case may be. The oil/water separation is critical. The oil/gas separation can bedescribed as the first stage of the refining process.

Source: Petroleum, Industry and Governments, 1999

The Convention sets the basic conditions of prospecting, exploration andexploitation (see Annex) for specified categories of resources in the area covered by a

plan of work.

Question: What is the implication of the new extensions of coastal State

sovereignty once EEZ is added to those of the continental shelf and the archipelagicwaters?

The key is in understanding first the notion of continental shelf. It refers to the

seabed area beyond the territorial sea to the superjacent waters. Does the insular shelflie outside both the territorial sea and archipelagic waters? For the Philippines, on the

side facing the Pacific, there is an immediate ocean deep in Mindanao.

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In the Philippines, geologically speaking, similar to Indonesia some of the seabedunder its archipelagic waters or territorial sea may fall within the meaning of continental

shelf. Therefore, legally speaking, the Philippines does not consider it as part of the

regime of continental shelf but as part of the regime of archipelagic waters or territorialsea.

7.2. Equidistance and the Middle-Line Argument

The archipelagic State as sovereign entity is self-determined to assert the surface

boundary line issue in the management of marine resources. In regard to extended

fishery jurisdiction out to 200 miles from the shore the new framework of coastal fisherymanagement has replaced the traditional fishery regimes. In the long run, it is better to

protect and secure the entire stock within coastal waters than to depend on the catch from

distant water fishery.

Jurisdictional/ boundary disputes in the South China Sea or the Sulu Sea or

Mindanao Sea do not have its roots in fishery matters. The marine boundary delimitationis a separate nonresource issue from marine fisheries and open access to living resources.

Marine resources are transboundary in nature. The migratory pattern of species is of

relevance to fisheries jurisdiction in a regional setting here.

Negotiation Pointers: Acceptance of the concept of the exclusive economic zone

does not lessen the need for cooperation for management of resources. Preferential use

based on Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) or Total Allowable Catch (TAC) aims toprotect the rights of fisherfolk.

Demarcation Matrix of Fishery Rights:

Traditional fishery rights in Any reference to traditional fishing rights applies

territorial waters and certain to the fishermen themselves, their equipment, theirareas of the archipelagic catch, and their fishing grounds or area to waters

waters or near-shores which the waters rights and activities are applied.

Fishery management regime Joint marine resource management of the coast for

ofdistant waterfishermen/ developing fishing industry and fishery reserve,

fleet or commercial fisheries refuge, and sanctuaries

The Fisheries Code of the Philippines under Section 80 provides fishery reserves

and sanctuaries in Philippine waters. An area or areas beyond fifteen (15) kilometersfrom shoreline may be designated for the exclusive use of the government or any of its

political subdivisions, agencies or instrumentalities, for propagation, educational,

research and scientific purposes. The MILF position is the application of the archipelagicState regime such that the governing principle is land and sea cannot be separated as part

of the same ecological system.

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Coastal Faade Theory

Apart from the concerns of proportionality for island-countries facing continental land

masses and the littoral states, another point is the configuration of most semi-enclosedseas in the operation of distant-water fishing. In effect the extension of zones of

economic jurisdiction of the Philippines and the adjacent countries to 200 miles could

leave no high seas area within the semi-enclosed sea (South China Sea) and enclosedsea (Sulu Sea). Property rights, then, once established, will set the stage for resources

management and environmental purposes.

The delimitation of the continental shelf boundary differs from the EEZ, which isfor the water column, in concepts and outer limits. In fact, the actual lines of delimitation

between opposite and adjacent neighboring States can also be different correspondingly.

The point here is that the median-line argument does not always seem the last resortwhen the principle of equidistance renders inequitable divide.

Juridical Status and Ocean Regime

Extensions of coastal sovereignty and jurisdiction at Sea include application of:- Archipelagic state regime- Twelve-mile (12) territorial sea- Twenty-four (24) contiguous zone- Two hundred-mile exclusive economic zone

- Continental shelf (up to edge of ocean margins)

Various jurisdictions on marine environment, and management of marine resources.

Geographical discrepancy among ASEAN member countries deters them from

establishing permanent exclusive fishing zone and to delimit the respective EEZ

boundaries. North Borneo is only 18 miles away from the nearest island of the Suluarchipelago. Since the continental shelf regime on which Malaysia rests its claim to part

of the Spratlys begins from the coast of Sabah, the sovereignty-based Philippine claim

has become less pronounced as thematic continuity.

7.3. The Historic Title Argument

As shown in the previous section, there exists prejudicial error and technicaldiscrepancy between the baselines and the treaty limits demarcation lines. The National

Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) explains that by signing andratifying the UNCLOS the Philippines stands to lose some waters that were defined

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within the Treaty of Paris. But it means also acquiring some parts of the ocean that werenot within the limits of the National Territory before.

Negotiation Pointers: A number of factors in the evolution of the archipelagicState have important bearing on the territory of the Bangsamoro juridical entity.

First, there are legal factors. The term archipelago is defined for the purposesof the Convention. It means a group of islands closely interrelated or which historically

have been regarded as such. The MILF ancestral domain claim is in keeping with this

argument based on shared or earned sovereignty. Of course it has bearing on customs,

immigration, and quarantine (CIQ) regulatory regime.

UNCLOS, Paragraph 4 of Article 49

The regime of archipelagic sea lanes passage established in the Part shall not in

other respects affect the status of the archipelagic waters, including the sea lanes, orthe exercise by the archipelagic state of its sovereignty over such waters and their

air space, bed and subsoils, and the resources contained there.

As incident to the legal status of archipelagic waters, it binds the islands, waters,

and other natural features of the Philippines as an intrinsic geographical economic and

political entity or which historically have been regarded as such. Anticipations ofdiplomatic sensitivity to pressing issues that impinge on the island-countrys overlapping

maritime areas with Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam is important to encourage regional

cooperative arrangements for the Bangsamoro juridical entity.

Second, there are unsettled territorial disputes. Aside from the Sabah claim, the

Spratleys dispute has had little significance to the previous framework of peace

agreement between GRP and MNLF. This can explain why in the current GRP andMILF peace talks the negotiations cover ancestral land domain, territorial waters and

natural resources. The influence of power politics in establishing ocean regime is not new

to the Bangsamoro as a maritime people. Current law-of-the-sea diplomacy and politicscan make the envisioned Bangsamoro juridical entity regain naturally and survive

incrementally the grabbing game of ocean resources.

Third, there are tangible natural features. Along the southern Treaty boundary of

the Sulu Sea delimiting the maritime frontier between the Philippines and North Borneo,

it is dotted by rocky islets and shoal patches which reduce the navigable channels. The

waters of Sulu Sea do not envelope nor touch the coast of any other littoral State. Itcovers a total area of 85,000 square miles and accentuates the most prominent feature of

the archipelagic State with a sea lane passage.

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Enclosed or Semi-enclosed Sea

Article 122 defines an enclosed or semi-enclosed sea as a gulf, basin, or sea

surrounded by two or more states and connected to the open seas by a narrow outlet

or consisting entirely or primarily of the territorial seas and exclusive economiczones of two or more coastal States.

This provision does not deal with the issue of delimitation or the question of the

freedom of navigation in these maritime areas. On this matter, the Convention does notcreate a special regime for those zones. So it avoids imposing, under Article 123, the

cooperation of maritime nations bordering enclosed or semi-enclosed seas. The MILF

believes that is at the basis of a historic right to marine resources in the Sulu Sea, MoroGulf, and Mindanao Sea areas.

Given finally the attention to the law of the sea regime, the foundation forPhilippine national arrangement runs counter to the Indonesian straight baselines in thesoutheast extreme facing the Pacific Ocean. The Indonesian island of Pulau Miangas is

contained within the Philippine territorial sea and the Indonesian straight baselines.

Within the meaning of Article 123, it could be also the external and internal aspects ofthe common fisheries policy or common border joint patrol.

Conclusion

One does not expect sovereignty to remain unaffected to organize contemporary

reality into two distinct spheres of the domestic and the international. The Government

has to reassess the constitutional implications of its involvement in negotiationsconcerning either sovereign rights or joint use and exploitation of resources, for example,

in the Spratleys (See CIRSS Papers, 1993, Foreign Service Institute). The bases of title

and the claims of sovereignty rights are increasingly blurred or indistinct based onconcepts evolved gradually in the law of the sea regime.

Because the matter of the extension of coastal sovereignty and jurisdiction at seawas the weightiest consideration leading to the decision of the Government to sign the

UNCLOS, it has anchored its archipelagic doctrine on the unique nature and

configuration of the territorial sea.

The Bangsamoro juridical entitys geographical significance lies in the fact that it

consists of two different components:

the mainland Mindanao eastern part characterized by its land domain element;and

the maritime domain western part waters element of which the Sulu sea areaslargely prevails, together with the Moro Gulf and the Mindanao Sea.

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N. B. The MILF proposed text was submitted in separate pages to be reconciled with the GRP

proposed text. The working drafts are reduced into the Agreed Text, which will then be

incorporated into the provisions of the Matrix on the Strands of Ancestral Domain. The

Agreed Texts together with the maps to depict the demarcations and boundary lines form

substantive parts of the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain Aspect

covering the four Strands: Concepts, Territory,Resources, and Governance.

Paper prepared for the MILF-GRP Exploratory Talks (Kuala Lumpur, November

2007). The comments of lawyers Ishak V. Mastura, Musib M. Buat and Lanang Ali

have been incorporated into the discussion.

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AppendixArchipelagic Status

10

Understand knowledgeable management of all the resources of the archipelago

Insure sovereignty and international rights

Influence power politics in establishing ocean regime

Governing principle: Land and sea cannot be separated being both part of the sameecological system. This fundamental principle of unity of land and sea should guide us in

formulating the law of the sea. Commercial and strategic (long-range) importance:

- Jurisdiction for managing the oceans waters and seabed surrounding anyisland-state must vest in the people who inhabit that state.

- Due consideration must be given to traditional rights and duties, constitutionalprovisions, international law and treaties.

Issue: Oceanic/ mid-ocean archipelagos are unique separated from other states and

peoples by vast expanses of international waters. For example, Hawaii is an oceanicarchipelago.

Open access for deep seabed

Management of migratory species

Protection of maritime heritage

Sea turtle lays its eggs in a federal (national), migrates into state waters on state reefs,

then, proceed into the 200-mile EEZ, having pass through waters of uncertain jurisdiction. They migrate into international waters and journey in islands of disputed

jurisdiction. Laws of protection change.

Each island country has an exclusive economic zone with:

a potential for fishing and for maricultre a potential for ocean thermal energy development a long-range potential for a visitor destination

There are concerns for limitation of access to the economic zone and the economic

resources of the archipelago regardless of the complexities of jurisdiction and

sovereignty. This is all about the common heritage provisions.

Measure:

Delimitation of EEZ (Art 74) and of Continental shelf (Art 83) boundaries, although theprinciples adopted are similar, if not the same.

10 This is part of the Research Paper for Category C prepared by lawyer Michael O. Mastura for the

MILF-GRP Exploratory Talk on Territorial Waters (Category C). November 8, 2007

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Issue: Whether the existing continental shelf boundaries could be taken as the boundaries

of the EEZ as well. Or, would a new set of boundaries for EEZ have to be negotiated?

The Philippines and Indonesia are an outlaying / off-laying archipelagoes.

Limit of the continental shelf - 200 miles or the outer edge margins Limit of the EEZ - 200 miles

Issue: Whether the actual lines of delimitation between opposite and adjacent states

would be different?

The boundary of the continental shelf often deviates from the normal median line forvarious reasons. But the reasons to deviate from the median line would be much less for

the delimitation of the EEZ.

UNCLOS has separate articles to deal with the issues for each regime. This implies the

possibility for of different delimitation of boundary lines of the EEZ and the continentalshelf, territorial sea and contiguous zone.

Confront the problems of implementing the archipelagic principles

- Application of archipelagic principles to exclude the use of archipelagicwaters for dumping oil and other wastes and enable the government to protect

the environment from harm.

- Application of archipelagic principles for defense and security and lawenforcement and enable the government to protect the safety, stability, and

interest of the country.

Question: What is the implication of the new extensions of coastal State sovereignty once

EEZ is added to those of the continental shelf and the archipelagic waters?

Understand first the notion of continental shelf.

It refers to the seabed area beyond the territorial sea to the superjacent waters. Does theinsular shelf lie outside both the territorial sea and archipelagic waters? For the

Philippines, on the side facing the Pacific, there is an immediate ocean deep in Mindanao.

In the Philippines, like Indonesia, geologically speaking, some of the seabed under itsarchipelagic waters or territorial sea may fall within the meaning of continental shelf.

Therefore, legally speaking, the Philippines does not consider it as part of the regime ofcontinental shelf but as part of the regime of archipelagic waters or territorial sea. And

so, the country has full territorial sovereignty over the areas rather than merely sovereign

rights to the exploration and exploitation of resources.

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The delimitation issues remain unresolved with respect to:

- the Celebes with Indonesia- the South China Sea with Malaysia, Vietnam, and China- the mutual margin with Malaysia and Indonesia

The Petroleum Act of 1949, as amended, is practically similar to the American legalsystem that takes into account and recognizes the special physical characteristics of a

mineral resource consisting of a mixture of liquid and gaseous substances.

In fact this legal system was no more than extending the ownership of land to the mineralresources on or beneath the land. As such, the property right mineral acquisition rights

could be obtained from the public or private owner of the land.

Question: What if the mineral and other natural resources are located in the continental

shelf adjacent to the Philippines is shared with an adjacent state? The boundaries have to

be determined by the Philippines and that country in accordance with legal and equitableprinciples.

The character of the waters above these submarine areas as high seas and that of the

airspace above those waters is not affected according to Presidential Decree No. 370dated March 20, 1968.

Know the determination of the legal regime

- Establish own EEZ outside its territorial sea around the Philippine archipelago

Note: For the Philippines, the EEZ is outside both its archipelagic waters and its

territorial sea. The regime will follow as much as possible the text of theConvention.

Presidential Decree No. 1599 dated June 11, 1978 establishes an EEZ. By this, itextends to a distance of 200 nautical miles beyond and from the baselines from

which the territorial sea is measured.

Where the outer limits of the zone as thus determined overlap the EEZ of anadjacent or neighboring state, the common boundaries is to be determined by

agreement with the state concerned or in accordance with principles of

international law on delimitation.

The expression in the decree without prejudice to rights over its territorial sea

and continental shelf is a caveat to the exercise of sovereign rights for purposesof exploration and exploitation, conservation and management of the natural

resources of the seabed, subsoil and the superjacent waters (i.e. from production

of energy from the water, currents and winds).

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Area of the Philippines including 3 mile territorial sea about each island is115,600 square nautical miles.

Area of the Philippines with 12 miles territorial sea about each island is 178,000square nautical miles.

Area of the Philippines enclosed in Baselines plus 12-mile territorial sea fromBaselines is 290,850 square nautical miles.

- Manage own EEZ and marine environment coordinated with management of the

archipelagic waters

The legal regimes of the two areas are different yet they are interrelated, and so in

physical fact would form an integrated ecosystem.

Note: The Philippines has declared its EEZ under P.D. 1599 and its basic

petroleum zone under Proclamation No. 370.

ibs occasional paper 2007-02 mastura

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