Mr. Guo Wei’s statement is yet another attempt to distort reality and shift blame. Let me be clear: the Philippines is not intruding into anyone’s waters. We are simply exercising our sovereign rights and jurisdiction in our own exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, as affirmed by UNCLOS.
The 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award is final, binding, and legally unassailable. It categorically rejected China’s illegal “nine-dash line” claims and historic rights assertions. Bajo de Masinloc lies well within the Philippines’ EEZ. While Panganiban Reef, Ayungin Shoal and Zamora Reef are low-tide elevations that do not generate entitlement to a territorial sea, exclusive economic zone or continental shelf, and are not features that are capable of appropriation by occupation or otherwise.
Panganiban Reef and Ayungin Shoal are part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines. These areas fall squarely within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile EEZ, and only the Philippines possesses sovereign rights over the resources and activities there. China has no legal basis to claim them as its “territorial waters” or “airspace.”
Geography itself exposes the absurdity of China’s position. Bajo de Masinloc is approximately 120 nautical miles from the coast of Luzon, well inside our EEZ. It is over 500 nautical miles from the nearest point on China’s mainland and even farther from Hainan. Panganiban Reef is roughly 129 nautical miles from Palawan—again, deep inside Philippine waters. These are not “China’s waters.” They never were.
When our Coast Guard and naval vessels operate in these areas, when our aircraft conduct lawful patrols, or when our fishermen exercise their fishing rights, we are not provoking anyone. We are simply doing what every coastal state has the right to do under UNCLOS: defend our maritime domain. It is China’s repeated deployment of coast guard ships, maritime militia, and naval vessels into our EEZ—often in large swarms—that constitutes the real intrusion and the source of tension.
We remain committed to diplomacy and to a peaceful, rules-based order in the South China Sea. But diplomacy does not mean surrendering our sovereign rights. The 2016 Award is the law and will continue to uphold it transparently, responsibly, and without apology. The real question is not who wants peace—it is who refuses to accept the binding decision of an international tribunal and continues to militarize features inside another country’s EEZ.
