Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay wants to establish a
provisional fishing agreement with China
to allow access to Filipino fishermen into the resource-rich Scarborough Shoal
in the South China Sea .
He made this statement during a budget briefing at the House
of Representatives on Tuesday, adding that this will help reduce the rising
tension and establish a better environment for bilateral negotiations with China
”But before these bilateral negotiations to take place, we
would like for China, at this point, to come out and agree with what is known
as a provisional agreement for the purpose of allowing our fishermen to go back
into their traditional fishing grounds,” said Yasay.
Yasay stressed that the Hague-based Permanent Court of
Arbitration (PCA) ruled that the Scarborough Shoal is a common fishing ground,
not entirely restricted to a particular exclusive economic zone or continental
shelf.
“We have also committed to them, under the decision of the
Arbitral Tribunal, (that) these are also the traditional fishing grounds of the
Chinese and the Vietnamese, and we have under this ruling, no right to drive
them out as well,” said Yasay.
The Foreign Secretary said that there is a West Philippine
Sea Task Force which encourages Filipino fishermen to go to the traditional
fishing grounds amid reported restrictions imposed by the Chinese government.
“This is just as much as we can do for now. We protest
against any actions taken by the Chinese in disallowing or preventing our
fishermen from fishing there,” Yasay said.
The Philippines ’
top diplomat, however, assured that the country “won’t be engaging China
”We will exercise maximum tolerance, restraint and sobriety
for this purpose. Our task, at this point, is to make sure that our diplomatic processes
that we will be embarking and continue to embark, in fact, will result in the
kind of objectives that we would like to achieve,” he added.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=918400
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.