President Duterte on Friday revealed that China has said that they will not claim Benham Rise as part of their territory.
Duterte said China will not claim Benham Rise as it is on the right side of the Philippines during a command conference in which the issue was discussed.
“They explained that “we will not claim Benham Rise,” Benham Rise on the right side of the Philippines,” Duterte said in his speech during the Digong’s Day for Women in Malacañang.
Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Office of the Executive Secretary have been tasked to look into the possibility of renaming Benham Rise to Philippine Rise to emphasize Philippine sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the area.
“A motion has been made subject to the conduct of the requisite legal and logistical study to effect the change,” Abella said.
Duterte has earned criticisms after he admitted that he allowed China to survey Benham Rise even without the knowledge of the Department of National Defense and the DFA.
Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo defended the President’s decision, saying Duterte need not to inform his alter-egos as it would be redundant.
The President, in a press conference last month, confused Benham Rise and the South China Sea, saying he understood why China would question the country’s claim over the 13-million hectare continental shelf.
China has said the Philippines cannot claim Benham Rise as its own territory, even if the United Nations, in a recognition last 2012, allowed the Philippines to explore and develop Benham Rise.
“Because they are claiming it, so I can understand. You cannot also claim that because I’m claiming it. But let us not fight about ownership or sovereignty at this time,” Duterte said in the press conference last March 14.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. had explained to the President the difference between the two. (Argyll Cyrus B. Geducos)
