China’s defense and maritime policies are contained in several printed policy papers beginning in 1998. This was updated in April 2013 and is entitled “The Diversified Employment of China’s Armed Forces.” According to this document, the Chinese policy is to “safeguard its border and promote its coastal security.” The document states that the role of Chinese armed forces is “to defend and exercise jurisdiction over China’s land borders and sea areas.” In the same paper, China regards the West Philippine seas as its coastal waters, the defense of which enjoys the same priority as quashing any attempt at achieving independence of Taiwan and opposing calls for the right to self-determination of Tibet.

Unlike the Philippines, China has a printed policy paper on its short-, medium- and long-term maritime policy. Its overall objective is to resurrect China’s old glory of being a world maritime power by 2050. Meanwhile, it is pursuing two short- and medium-term goals: during the first phase concluding in 2000, the People’s Liberation Army shall have acquired sea-control power within its coastal waters. During the second phase, which is from 2010-2020, the PLA shall have achieved a kind of sea-denial capability within its first island chain in the West Pacific, the West Philippine Sea. It is precisely this second goal which explains China’s recent actions in Ayungin. If the printed maritime policies are to be followed, this means in fact that China will not only take control and possession of Ayungin, it aims also to occupy all other disputed islands, shoals and reef, even the biggest island under our occupation, Kalayaan. The issue is not if, but when it will actually do so.

It is precisely this maritime defense policy that gives urgency to an early resolution of our arbitral claims now pending with the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Unless the tribunal rules on the validity of China’s nine-dash lines, China will implement its 50-year maritime policy in a manner that treats the entirety of the West Philippines Sea encompassed by these lines as its internal and territorial waters. For what it’s worth, the initiation of the arbitration will be remembered forever as PNoy’s best foreign policy initiative.

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I have been to the island of Marinduque twice in a time span of a month, The reason is to explain the $20-million dollar offer made by Barrick Gold, the biggest gold mining company in the world, to settle the suit of the province filed against it in 2005 currently pending in a Federal Court of Nevada.

Since I am not qualified to practice in the United States, my participation in the lawsuit was only as an expert witness on the binding nature of international environmental law to the United States. One of the cornerstones of environmental law is the so-called “polluter pays principle”, which mandates that entities that cause pollution must pay for the clean-up.

The US Coast Guard has estimated that no less than 100 million dollars is required to clean up the 200 million tons of mine tailings dumped into the island’s rivers and waters. The problem though is that meanwhile, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case of Kiobel vs., Shell that henceforth US courts should  not exercise jurisdiction over claims against foreign corporation for acts which did not take place in the territory of the United States. Kiobel was s a case under the Alien Tort Claims act that authorizes US courts to exercise extra-territorial jurisdiction against respondents found in the US for violations of International Law. This statute has been utilized since the 1980s as a means to hold despots responsible for their acts of extralegal killings, torture and enforced disappearances since the case of Filartiga involving a former Panamanian despot. This was also the cause of action of the martial law victims against the estate of Marcos.

In 2013, the US Supreme Court in Kiobel held that henceforth, US courts cannot exercise jurisdiction versus foreign corporations for torts committed overseas solely because these foreign corporations’ shares are listed in the stock market in the US or because they have a commercial presence in the US. Today, the US Supreme Court requires the following as the test for the exercise of US jurisdiction: Do they “touch and concern the territory of the United States . . . with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application?”

Unfortunately, much as I would want a higher settlement for Marinduque, the pending case against Barrick appears to be barred by the test of Kiobel. This is because Barrick is a Canadian company and the acts that led to the environmental damage were done in the Philippines. Sad to say, the province has become of the many victims of the Kiobel test. But hey, $20 million dollars is still about a billion pesos. This is hardly a sum of money that can be considered peanuts to to a province that earns only P200 million annually.