The Ilonggo stakeholder in the arbitral case

By Herbert Vego

HATS off to a fellow Ilonggo — retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Francis H. Jardeleza — who is now independent director of MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power). As such, he is an investor (with no more than two percent shares of stocks) representing the utility’s customers.

Jardeleza was one of my college classmates – although he might have forgotten because I was not a stand-out in class – at the University of the Philippines, Iloilo College (UPIC) in 1966.

Just as we thought he had already rested on his laurels as a public servant, Jardeleza hogged the headlines yesterday for having drafted, with the assistance of two academicians, a proposed bill aimed at enforcing the South China Sea Arbitral Award won by the Philippines in its maritime dispute with China before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, The Netherlands.

Of course, his proposal would have to be sponsored by legislators in Congress, most of whom are allies of President Rodrigo Duterte. That must  be why he had to write a letter (dated June 5, 2021) to the President urging him to certify its urgency.

When passed into law, it would amend Republic Act 9522, better known as the Baselines Law, to specifically name and identify the maritime features within our 330-kilometer exclusive economic zone at the West Philippine Sea.

It would also oblige the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) to produce and publish charts and maps of the Philippines reflecting the amendment within six months of its effectivity.

The PCA ruling upheld the Philippines’ exclusive rights over the Panatag or Scarborough Shoal, and Bajo de Masinloc. It also rejected China’s claim of “sovereign and historic rights” within its so-called nine-dash line.

Like most Filipinos, no doubt Jardeleza was incensed by the intrusion of China’s militia and fishing boats at the West Philippine Sea in defiance of the arbitration decision which recognized the Philippines’ sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea.

Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III was our President when the Philippine government on January 22, 2013 filed the case accusing China of violating the Philippines’ sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which includes uninhabited islands within 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) off the country’s coastline

Jardeleza was then the country’s Solicitor General and head of the Philippine government’s legal team to The Hague. The two others in the team were the then-Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Florin Hilbay.

It was on July 12, 2016 (2nd month of Duterte’s presidency) when the tribunal resolved the case in favor of the Philippines, thus invalidating Beijing’s alleged jurisdiction.

Will Duterte grant Jardeleza’s request?

Sorry. But if you doubt as I do, that is because Duterte – probably to impress his friend Xi Jin Ping – once shrugged off on national TV the arbitral ruling as “a mere piece of paper that can be thrown away in a trash bin.”

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MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL 

THERE was a time when a team of American policemen from the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) of San Francisco, California came to probe the possibility of a Mexican drug cartel branching out in Manila. Nothing has come out of their mission.

The Sinaloa, the biggest drug syndicate in Mexico, thrives on high-grade narcotics worldwide, including the United States.

While its leader and founder, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, is now serving his sentence at the United States Penitentiary Maximum Facility, Sinaloa is believed to have grown even stronger.

The U.S. city of Chicago had named El Chapo  “public enemy No. 1,” seemingly a reincarnation of that city’s legendary crime boss, Al Capone.

Using money to corrupt government officials and the police, the cartel has allegedly brutally murdered those who would get in the way of their illegal activities, including competitors.

Strange as it seems, none of the illegal drug pushers and dealers caught alive by the PNP and PDEA have mentioned anything about Sinaloa.

May naga-salo ayhan?