On this day 125 years ago, Spain and the United States of America (USA) signed a treaty which clarified the territory of the Philippine archipelago. It states that Spain cedes to USA “any and all islands belonging to the Philippine Archipelago, lying outside the lines described in [the Treaty of Paris].”
This treaty serves as legal basis for the Philippines’ ownership of Bajo de Masinloc (Scarborough Shoal) and Kalayaan Island Group (Spratlys), which both appears in the 1734 Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Yslas Filipinas and the 1875 Carta General del Archipielago Filipino. The latter was reissued by the Americans in 1898, 1900, 1901, and 1902 with minimal modification.
The Treaty of Washington was among the international documents mentioned as the basis of Philippine territory in the 1935 Constitution of the Philippines.
This treaty was negotiated after Spanish garrisons located in Cagayan de Sulú and Sibutú refused to turn over their positions to the Americans, as the islands were beyond the lines drawn by the 1898 Treaty of Paris.
Read the text of the treaty here: history.state.gov/historicaldocu Listen to Justice Antonio Carpio’s explanation on the value of the Treaty in our rights in the West Philippines Sea: youtube.com/watch?v=UKf8iQ Credits: National Historical Commission of the Philippines
