By Farah G. Decano

 

IN observation of Law Week this September, the Lyceum Northwestern University (L-NU) College of Law was honored to have the online presence of former Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio. He spoke on Philippine Island Territories in the West Philippine Sea.

Justice Carpio started with the statement that the greatest misconception about the Philippine Territory is that our country’s islands were limited to what was included in the 1898 Treaty of Paris.  He criticized Filipino legal luminaries for forgetting the other treaties mentioned in Article 1 of the 1935 Constitution which explicitly mentioned that the islands were included also in the 1900 Treaty of Washington between the United States and Spain and the 1930 Convention between the United States and Great Britain were part of the Philippine archipelago.

Armed with more than 60 slides in his deck presentation, Justice Carpio cited the legal bases for the Philippines’ claim over the islands in the West Philippine Sea – the 1935 Constitution, the treaties, ancient maps, and certain international cases.

The former magistrate then elaborated on the description of National Territory found in the 1935 Philippine Constitution.  Article 1 thereof referred to our country as an archipelago that included islands covered by the earlier mentioned three treaties. Justice Carpio pointed out that the term “archipelago” must be interpreted in the context and time it was used. “This is the intertemporal doctrine in international law,” he said.  This means that a concept must be understood during the period it was used and not during the moment when an issue already arose.  Hence, he warned the audience that the definition of  “archipelago”  in the 1982 United Nations Law of the Seas Convention must not be applied in the interpretation of “archipelago” in the 1935 Constitution.

Justice Carpio proceeded to discuss briefly the three international agreements mentioned in Article 1 of our 1935 Constitution.  The Treaty of Paris in 1898 contained the cession of the Philippines by Spain to the United States (US) for twenty million dollars.  The said Paris agreement, which indicated the extent of the Philippine territory given up to the US, had one issue – the text conflicted with the attached map. Its written coordinates excluded the Scarborough, the Spratlys, Cagayan de Sulu, Sibutu, the Turtle Islands, and others, which the annexed map contained.  In order to clarify this issue, the US and Spain  reached another agreement in Washington in 1900 wherein the coordinates were adjusted to follow the original map.  The 1930 Convention between the US and Great Britain merely delineated the boundaries between North Borneo and the Philippines.

The reason for this greatest misconception, Justice Carpio expressed, was that  legal experts forgot  about the 1900 Treaty of Washington in considering our territory.   They missed this suppletory treaty to the 1898 Treaty of Paris.  He has written NAMRIA, the agency that publishes official maps of the Philippines, to consider this “forgotten” treaty when printing maps.  The retired magistrate cited other legal grounds but that we shall save discussion of the same for later.

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Former Department of Education Undersecretary (Usec), Gloria Mercado, accuses Vice President Sara Duterte of having fired her because of her alleged disagreement with the bidding of some supplies. The USec also admitted that she was given envelopes containing P50,000 as monthly allowances, which she accepted.  The House of Representatives painted the ex-USec like an angel who would not want to tarnish her 40 years of service in Government.

 Due to my exposure in the Dagupan City Government as its City Administrator, I cannot  immediately support this theory of Mercado’s four decades of service as proof of her honest service.  There are those who have stayed long enough in government to know how to circumvent the laws without getting traced.  

USec Mercado presented to the Congressmen the empty envelopes which allegedly contained the  P50,000 “monthly allowances.” But why were they empty? She claimed she donated the money to NGOs.  Really, now? And where are the receipts?  Were these NGOs reputable?  We’ve been burned by fly-by-night NGOs before, right?  Remember, Napoles?

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