Senate Deputy Minority Leader Rodante Marcoleta spent more than 30 minutes on Monday grilling Senator Kiko Pangilinan over the data cited in his sponsorship speech for proposed Senate Resolution No. 256, which seeks to condemn recent statements by the Chinese Embassy against Filipino officials.
During the plenary session, Marcoleta repeatedly questioned the basis of Pangilinan’s claim that the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) measures around 500,000 square kilometers.
Pangilinan later clarified that the figure came from a lecture by retired Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.
Marcoleta countered that, based on figures from the National Security Council, the WPS EEZ measures closer to 381,000 square kilometers.
Despite the discrepancy, Pangilinan maintained that China is encroaching on a significant portion of the country’s maritime entitlements.
“We have sovereign rights over our territorial sea and exclusive rights,” Pangilinan said. “It does not remove the fact that it is being aggressively taken over by China.”
Marcoleta pushed for greater precision, stressing the need to clearly define the country’s maritime boundaries.
“We would like to specifically determine the extent of our West Philippine Sea … baka mahirapan tayo ipagtanggol kung ano ang hanggang sa atin,” he said.
Pangilinan cited the 2016 arbitral ruling under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which invalidated China’s nine-dash line claim.
While acknowledging the ruling, Marcoleta asked whether the figures were anchored on specific laws such as Administrative Order 29, Presidential Decree 1596, or Republic Acts 9522 and 12064, all of which define the Philippines’ territorial sea.
Senate Majority Leader Migz Zubiri later stepped in to clarify that former Senator Francis Tolentino, as chair of the Senate Special Committee on Philippine Maritime and Admiralty Zones, had already authored two laws establishing the country’s archipelagic baselines, maritime zones, and sea lanes.