‘Expedite adoption of South China Sea Code of Conduct’
Credit to Author: Alexis Romero| Date: Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 +0800
KUALA LUMPUR – Days after a Chinese water cannon attack on Philippine research vessels in the West Philippine Sea, President Marcos yesterday called for a speedier process of threshing out a binding code of conduct for South China Sea claimants.
“We underscore the urgent need to accelerate the adoption of a legally binding code of conduct in the South China Sea. This is to safeguard maritime rights, promote stability and prevent miscalculations at sea,” the President said in a speech at the plenary session of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit.
China continues to resort to aggressive acts to assert its wide-reaching and illegal South China Sea maritime claim voided by an international arbitral court in 2016.
The latest aggression involved its coast guard’s shadowing, blocking, sideswiping and firing of water cannon at two Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources ships on routine marine scientific research activity in the vicinity of Sandy Cay within the West Philippine Sea last May 21.
China’s claim covers more than 90 percent of the strategic sea lane. Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei and Taiwan also have claims in the South China Sea.
In 2002, ASEAN member-countries and China signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to ease tensions as well as ensure maritime disputes are peacefully addressed. A legally binding code of conduct has yet to be adopted more than 23 years since the declaration was approved.
Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said Marcos is optimistic about the adoption of a code of conduct. She added that other ASEAN members share the President’s stance on the issue because they are also concerned about their maritime rights in the South China Sea.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has expressed hope that a code of conduct would be approved by next year.
In an earlier speech, Marcos said he would push back against attempts by China to question or ignore the Philippines’ sovereignty and jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea, the portion of the South China Sea that is within Manila’s 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and continental shelf.
Speaking before an assembly of ASEAN parliamentarians, Speaker Martin Romualdez also called for a rules-based order in the region, especially by upholding the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS, “which guarantees peace, security and sovereignty for all.”
“We must move as one – translating ASEAN’s collective aspirations into concrete policies that empower our workers, farmers and fisherfolk, protect our seas, connect our digital economies and defend the rules-based international order,” Romualdez told the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.
Meanwhile, over 150 volunteers, artists and civil society leaders under the Atin Ito coalition gathered in El Nido in Palawan yesterday in preparation for the launch of their third civilian-led mission to the West Philippine Sea (WPS) on board the M/V Kapitan Felix Oca, to be highlighted by a “Sea Concert for Solidarity and Peace” near Pag-asa Island.
The five-day mission runs until May 30.
“This continues our people-powered assertion of the Philippines’ sovereign rights and territorial integrity through peaceful, participatory actions that uplift the voices of our fisherfolk and coastal communities,” said Atin Ito co-convenor Rafaela David, who is also the Akbayan party president.
She described the initiative as “a love song to our seas and to the people who protect them,” underscoring the group’s stand that is based on “compassion, community and culture” and not on militarism.
“This isn’t just a concert, it’s a movement,” said David. “And this movement belongs to every Filipino who believes our seas should be zones of peace, not conflict.”
She called the third Atin Ito WPS mission “a people-powered campaign activity against aggressors in the West Philippine Sea,” but with “a clear message of peace.”
The sea concert will feature performances by Filipino artists Noel Cabangon, Ebe Dancel, all-women rock band Rouge, rap collective Morobeats and P-pop group HORI7ON.
They will be joined by international performers including Japanese singer Fumi, Malaysian and Indonesian artists Viona and Kai Mata and South Korean K-pop group I:Mond. — Mark Ernest Villeza, Michael Punongbayan, Jose Rodel Clapano