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Raissa Robles

A decade after a tribunal in The Hague ruled on July 12, 2016, that Beijing’s sweeping South China Sea claims had no legal basis, Philippine officials and analysts say Manila remains heavily outmatched at sea but has begun turning its landmark legal victory into a more credible form of deterrence.
The Philippines brought the case in 2013 under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), challenging Beijing’s nine-dash line and other claims.
The tribunal ruled that China’s nine-dash line had no legal basis and that it had violated Manila’s sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone, though it did not decide which country owned the disputed reefs and features.
China rejected the proceedings and the ruling, saying the tribunal had no jurisdiction and insisting it had sovereignty over the disputed features and adjacent waters.
Beijing argues the tribunal had no jurisdiction because the case touched on sovereignty and maritime delimitation, matters it says are outside compulsory dispute settlement under Unclos. In a 2014 position paper, China said the tribunal “manifestly has no jurisdiction” and that the Philippines had violated agreements to settle disputes through negotiation.

The Philippines and its supporters reject that argument, saying the award is final and binding under Unclos. But Beijing has since remained locked in a diplomatic row with Manila in the contested waterway, with tensions escalating into vessel clashes.
Beijing says its claims are rooted in sovereignty over the South China Sea islands, which it calls Nanhai Zhudao, and in maritime rights flowing from those features. In a statement on Sunday, China’s foreign ministry said its sovereignty and interests in the sea had been “established in the long course of history” and were “solidly grounded in the law”.
Speakers at a forum in Manila on Friday said the past decade had seen Manila strengthen its ability to raise the cost of what they see as Beijing’s “creeping invasion” into waters the Philippines considers its territory.
Beijing has rejected such descriptions, saying its actions are intended to defend China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights. In its Sunday statement, China’s foreign ministry said its measures in response to “infringements and provocations” were “reasonable, legitimate, professional and restrained”.
Realistically, the Philippines could not really “take on China because we will never have parity with China in terms of military, but at least [we will have the capability] to be able to inflict enough pain to deter, to prevent, and for China to at least hesitate”, former military chief General Emmanuel Bautista told the forum.
The forum, titled “A Decade of the Arbitral Award: Credible Deterrence in Defence of the West Philippine Sea”, was sponsored by Stratbase, a local think tank established by the late Philippine foreign secretary Albert del Rosario, who led Manila’s arbitration case.
“I think when it comes to building deterrence, clearly there has been a lot of improvement, especially in the last couple of years and the air force is in a much, much better place now than it ever was before, even though there’s still a lot that needs to be done,” said Professor Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.
“We know the odds are not clearly in our favour, but yet we stay the course,” Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr said in his keynote address.
Teodoro pointed to several ways forward, saying the military arsenal should no longer concentrate on storing small-calibre ammunition and “should not be outsourced”.
He said the scope of military operations was being reoriented to active defence covering an additional 2 million km of maritime domain – a result of a partial shift under the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defence Concept, which treated the Philippines’ maritime zones, islands and surrounding waters as a single defence space.

General Romeo Brawner Jnr, the current Armed Forces chief of staff, said “one of the most important lessons” was maintaining a sustained and constant presence in the maritime domain area by the armed forces, the coastguard and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
For both Brawner and Teodoro, the armed forces have been able to leverage the arbitral victory by getting like-minded nations to support the award, engage in multilateral maritime activities and assist the military in upgrading its war assets.
On Friday, 14 countries sent their envoys to the forum and jointly signed a statement affirming that the arbitral award remained “final, legally binding and definitive”.
They also rejected China’s nine- and 10-dash lines and opposed its use of coercion to harass Manila’s lawful operations in the South China Sea.
China reiterated on Sunday that the ruling was “illegal, null and void” and had no binding force, while accusing the US and other outside powers of “fanning the flames” by increasing their military presence in the South China Sea.
Deterrence also extended into cyberspace, said retired navy Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, spokesman for Philippine operations in the South China Sea.
Trinidad said online messaging, which he attributed to Chinese influence operations, sought to “destroy the will to fight of the Filipino people, to create divisions internally, politically, economically, everything, to cause us to fight among ourselves”.
He added that such online operations constantly promoted the message that the arbitral victory was but “a mere scrap of paper” – a quote by former president Rodrigo Duterte which was criticised as an excuse to temporarily shelve the dispute in favour of billions of dollars’ worth of concessionary loans from China – and that other Southeast Asian countries viewed the arbitral victory with disfavour.

Critics have long argued that the “scrap of paper” description appeared to be borne out by events on the water.
After Manila filed the arbitration case in 2013, Beijing built six more military islands on features also claimed by the Philippines – Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, Johnson Reef, Gaven Reef, Hughes Reef and Cuarteron Reef – in addition to its presence on Mischief Reef from the mid-1990s.
China has defended its work on disputed reefs, saying the facilities were built on its own territory and intended partly to provide maritime public services. In 2016, the foreign ministry said they were meant to support “maritime search and rescue”, disaster prevention, environmental protection and navigation safety, while allowing for “necessary national defense facilities”.
Evan Garcia, a former Philippine permanent representative to the UN office in Geneva and ambassador to the United Kingdom, said those assurances recalled what Manila had heard when Chinese structures were first discovered on Mischief Reef in the mid-1990s.
“I was in the office of the [foreign] secretary at the time. It took us completely by surprise,” Garcia said.
“After we protested, the Chinese said, don’t worry, this is a fisherman’s shelter. Especially because they said they’d never militarise Mischief Reef. And now we can see what has happened,” Garcia said.
“So you have to understand what the Philippines had faced since 1995, since all the attempts to talk bilaterally and multilaterally had failed.”
As for online posts saying that no other Asean state backed the arbitration and its ruling, Garcia stressed of the regional bloc: “Asean has never supported the Chinese [nine or 10-dash] line as a group. Just because you’re silent doesn’t mean you support it.”


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The Philippines

South China Sea: 10 years after Hague ruling, how has the Philippines’ stance evolved?

Ships identified by the Philippine Coast Guard as Chinese research vessels are seen at Scarborough Shoal in the disputed South China Sea on June 15. Photo: AFP

People pass by an electronic board showing areas of the disputed South China Sea during a conference in Manila on Friday to mark the 10th anniversary of a 2016 arbitration ruling which invalidated China’s expansive claims. Photo: AP

A ship identified by the Philippine Coast Guard as Chinese maritime militia is seen near Scarborough Shoal in the disputed South China Sea on June 15. Photo: AFP

A drone view shows fishing vessels docked in Subic Bay, Zambales province, on Thursday as the Philippines marks the 10th anniversary of the July 12, 2016, international arbitral ruling that invalidated Beijing’s expansive claims in the South China Sea. Photo: Reuters

Ships identified by the Philippine Coast Guard as Chinese research vessels (left and right) and Chinese maritime militia (lower) at Scarborough Shoal in the disputed South China Sea on June 15. Photo: AFP

Philippines looks to space for bird’s-eye view of South China Sea threats

A Philippine coastguard personnel monitors Scarborough Shoal in the disputed South China Sea on June 15. Photo: AFP

A satellite image shows what appears to be a man-made barrier blocking the entrance to the lagoon at the Scarborough Shoal, an atoll in the South China Sea that is claimed by both the Philippines and China. Photo: Satellogic/SkyFi

A Ukrainian serviceman stands next to the antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system in Bakhmut on February 9, 2023. Photo: AFP

Philippines unpicks Asean’s South China Sea ‘sovereignty deadlock’

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr (centre) leads a wreath-laying ceremony to mark the Philippines’ Independence Day on Friday. Photo: EPA

A Chinese coastguard vessel patrols near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea in April. Photo: Xinhua

Asean leaders pose for a group photo during the opening ceremony of the 48th Asean summit in Cebu, the Philippines, on May 8. Photo: Xinhua

A Chinese coastguard vessel patrols last month near Scarborough Shoal, a disputed atoll located about 220km from the Philippines’ main island of Luzon. Photo: Xinhua

Philippines says Beijing main hurdle to South China Sea code of conduct

A Chinese coastguard vessel patrols the disputed South China Sea on May 23. Photo: Xinhua

Philippine defence chief Gilberto Teodoro Jnr delivers a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Members of the Chinese delegation attend the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Philippines’ Asean maritime hub pitch meets ‘big red elephant’ South China Sea realities

A Chinese coastguard vessel tests its water cannon in the South China Sea on May 5. Photo: Xinhua

China’s next-generation amphibious assault ship Sichuan heads to the South China Sea for trials in April. Photo: CCTV

China Coast Guard vessel Chuanshan tests its water cannon during training exercises in the South China Sea on Friday. Photo: Xinhua

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Officials and analysts say Manila’s deterrence strategies can now make China ‘at least hesitate’, even though there is still much to be done


Officials and analysts say Manila’s deterrence strategies can now make China ‘at least hesitate’, even though there is still much to be done.


South China Sea: 10 years after Hague ruling, how has the Philippines’ stance evolved?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Officials and analysts say Manila’s deterrence strategies can now make China ‘at least hesitate’, even though there is still much to be done

Officials and analysts say Manila’s deterrence strategies can now make China ‘at least hesitate’, even though there is still much to be done