Republic Act 9522 or the Philippine Archipelagic Baseline Law

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today (Wednesday March 11, 2009) signed Republic Act 9522 or the Philippine Archipelagic Baseline Law that will ensure international recognition of the country’s baselines or boundaries.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said RA 9522 reaffirms the Philippines’ claims to its territorial waters, including its extended continental shelf, economic zones, and the contested Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) off Palawan province and the Scarborough shoal in the country’s western seaboard.

Ermita said the Philippine government is asserting its sovereignty over the country’s territorial area and economic zones because that’s the right thing to do.

RA 9522 was enacted in time to meet the deadline of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) for countries and archipelagic states to submit their respective claims to their extended continental shelf, set on May 13 this year.

Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Director Henry Bensurto said the law is a “clinical and technical adjustment” of the existing baseline law as required by the UNCLOS.

The adjustment, Bensurto said, is in compliance with the UNCLOS which lays down the technical requirements by which archipelagos can draw their baselines. “It is imperative for us to make the technical adjustment in compliance with the UNCLOS,” he added.

The DFA official explained that UNCLOS did not exist yet when the old law, RA 3046, which defined the country’s baselines was signed. UNCLOS came about only in 1994.

Under the new law (RA 9522), the disputed KIG and Scarborough Shoal remain part of Philippine territory but under a “regime of islands” category which is defined by Article 121 of the UNCLOS as islands or naturally formed areas of land surrounded by water that remain above water during high tide. – PNA

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