Step one, option one.

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

With the Permanent Court of Arbitration under the United Nations issuing its Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility in connection with the arbitration case between the Philippines and China, the body has now established that it has jurisdiction to hear the claims over the West Philippine Sea.

“The Tribunal's Award of today's date is unanimous and concerns only whether the Tribunal has jurisdiction to consider the Philippines' claims and whether such claims are admissible. The Award does not decide any aspect of the merits of the Parties' dispute,” the tribunal said in a statement on Thursday.

As China has stressed that it will neither accept nor participate in the arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines, the Tribunal holds that China's refusal to participate in the proceedings does not deprive the Tribunal of jurisdiction and that the Philippines' decision to commence arbitration unilaterally was not an abuse of the Convention's dispute settlement procedures. It also rejected China's argument that the dispute in the South China Sea is beyond its jurisdiction as it held that both the Philippines and China are parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and bound by its provisions on settlement of disputes.

This is a significant victory for the Philippine cause and our efforts to stand up to the regional bully but this is just the beginning of a long and difficult process where even a favorable decision by the UN's Permanent Court of Arbitration might not have any effect on a country that has shown an irresponsible disregard for international conventions and laws of the sea.

A small and relatively powerless country like the Philippines does not stand a chance against an insecure superpower with expansionist tendencies when it comes to military might and the ability to build artificial islands anywhere it pleases but this does not mean we do not have any options left. This arbitration case is one of those options and it is a path that we must carry through to the end while we explore all the other options that are available to us in our quest to bring stability and real harmony to that part of the world.*