Philippine Coast Guard plane flies over South China Sea.
Philippines to soon choose venue for second South China Sea case against Beijing. The Philippines will soon decide to sue China on an international platform for alleged damage to the marine environment, the country’s attorney general said, in its second high-profile legal challenge over the South China Sea.
In 2016, the Philippines won a landmark case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration that ruled that China’s claim to sovereignty over the entire South China Sea had no basis in international law. The Philippines now hopes to hold Beijing accountable for its alleged exploitation of giant clams and the vast environmental damage it has caused to coral reefs in its exclusive economic zone.
“We are discussing and will make a decision soon,” Justice Secretary Crispin Remora said of the legal body that will take up the case.
“The crimes are very clear,” he said. “At the end of the day, this is the best way to go about it offensively. There are many ways to deal with this, but this is one of the latest.”
The 2016 arbitration case angered China, which refused to recognize it and has stepped up efforts to assert its sovereignty over the British Virgin Islands, sending a contingent of coast guard and fishermen hundreds of miles from the mainland.
Beijing has built artificial islands on the reefs, some of which are equipped with missile systems and airstrips. Beijing denies damaging the region’s marine ecosystem and accuses the Philippines of doing the same. Manila rejects that.
A 2023 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies said China’s construction activities have buried more than 4,600 acres (1,861 hectares) of coral reefs.
The environmental dispute has become another flashpoint in a long-running territorial dispute between China and the Philippines, a U.S. ally, with ships from the Philippines and China repeatedly clashing over disputed reefs in Manila’s exclusive economic zone, including Scarborough Shoal, the Second Philippine Shoal and the Sabina Seat.
Remulla said the Philippine Coast Guard and other agencies on the front lines of the South China Sea have provided “substantial evidence” of the backlog of cases.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice are among several possible avenues identified by Philippine officials as they explore options for the second case.
Remulla stressed the urgency of the issue and said the government hopes to raise it this year, stressing the need to strengthen its legal strategy.
“This is a civil case. We are seeking compensation. We want compensation,” he said. “This was all supposed to happen yesterday.”
The Philippines claims that China’s activities, including dredging, coral harvesting and building artificial islands, have caused severe and irreversible damage to coral reefs and marine biodiversity. China accuses the Philippines of deliberately causing damage to Thomas II Shoal by grounding a warship there in 1999.
