It’s a misconception – probably deliberately disseminated – that our suit is asking for the court to rule as illegal China’s so-called “nine-dash line,” a vague tongue-shaped dashed line on its maps, which declares practically the entire South China Sea as theirs, including our Kalayaan Island Group.
While it did mention that such nine-dash line is “invalid,” the Philippine case involves the argument that the Chinese can’t occupy what are merely “rocks,” which the suit, invoking UNCLOS provisions, called “submerged reefs with no more than a few rocks protruding above sea level at high tide.”
Paragraph 24 of our “Statement of Claim” submitted to the Court says: Even as these Chinese-held “features are ‘rocks’ under Article 121(3) of UNCLOS, China unlawfully claims entitlements to maritime zones greater than 12 nautical miles in the waters and seabed surrounding them, and wrongfully excludes the Philippines and other States from these areas.”
“Rocks” are in contrast to islands, like our Pag-asa Island, which UNCLOS gives a 12-mile territorial zone and another 12-mile contiguous zone. Besides, Aquino’s government argued, the entire Spratly island also falls within our mainland’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone around it, in which the Chinese-controlled reefs are located.
