MANILA – Contrary to the claims of some, President Rodrigo Duterte has the authority to enter “executive” agreements, including a verbal deal with China on fishing rights in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), according to Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo.
Panelo said former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario were wrong when they said no public official has “the authority to grant foreigners fishing rights.”
He added executive agreements are usually “less formal” and deal with a “narrower range of subject matters than treaties.” Philippine jurisprudence or case law has long-recognized that this power may be exercised by the President even without the concurrence of the Congress.
“The President, as the chief architect of our foreign policy, has the authority to enter into executive agreements, written or oral,” said Panelo. “Conventions or high-level meetings among foreign leaders are useless if they cannot commit and bind their countries at the time of said engagements.”
“The rationale for this is simple: In a world where countries have the ability to craft their own respective sets of rules, conflicting municipal policies are inevitable in cases which reach the level of an international concern,” he added.
Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on a verbal fishing agreement in 2016, allowing the Chinese to fish within the Philippines’ 200-nautical mile EEZ if China allowed Filipinos to fish in the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal.
“The agreement was entered into not because of any threat or vitiation of consent, but because the President sees such arrangement as pragmatic which can keep at bay any conflict between two countries, while we gain a venue where we can assert our sovereign rights,” Panelo said.
“The motivation of PRRD in entering into the agreement is the welfare of the Filipino people in general, not just to ensure their physical safety but also to enable them to exploit the natural resources in the waters being controlled by China as a source of their livelihood. These are being achieved now,” he added.
Panelo vowed the government will continue to assert Philippine rights but only though “peaceful manner” of diplomatic negotiations since it is “one of the most effective modes of settling international disputes.”/PN