The Chinese government cannot conduct seismic surveys to look for oil, gas and minerals at Benham Rise, Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said in a statement.
The Chinese government cannot conduct seismic surveys to look for oil, gas and minerals at Benham Rise, Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said in a statement.
Carpio, who was part of the Philippine delegation that argued before the United Nation’s Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in 2015 and tapped by President Rodrigo Duterte as consultant in the territorial issues with China, said the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has reserved the oil, gas and mineral in the Extended Continental Shelf (ECS) to the Philippines.
The magistrate said that while Benham Rise is not part of the Philippine national territory, the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf confirmed that it is part of the ECS of the Philippines.
“We have sovereign rights over it because we have exclusive right to explore and exploit the oil, gas and other mineral resources in the area,” Carpio said.
