The Philippine Coast Guard has once again lambasted China’s vast territorial claims over the portion of the West Philippine Sea.

Commodore Jay Tarriela, PCG spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, said China is trying to further light fire on the increasing tension between Manila and Beijing over disputed territorial waters. 

“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is distorting the concept by packaging its illegal territorial claims as "jurisdiction," avoiding the legal and political facts of its illegal presence within the Philippines’ EEZ, and seeking to solidify its illegal gains in the West Philippine Sea,” Tarriela said in his X (formerly Twitter) account post on Saturday. 

“PRC is attempting to further provoke legal challenges based on its unilateral drawn lines in the entire South China Sea,” he added.

Tarriela stressed that China’s actions worsen the situation in the WPS. 

“This will only further squeeze the political space for the PRC and Philippines to jointly manage crises and properly handle disputes if they would be consistently ignoring UNCLOS and not sincere in doing whatever they are saying publicly,” he said.

Tarriela made the statement after China accused the Philippines of abusing legal means amid the Senate's recent passage of a bill defining the Philippines' maritime zones.

China described this move as the country's "provocation against them.”

The Global Times, a tabloid newspaper under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper, the People's Daily,  claimed that “experts the actions of ignoring reality and blindly resolving relevant disputes with legal resolutions do not apply to the complex South China Sea issue.”

Last week, the Philippine lawmakers approved Senate Bill 2492, or the proposed “Philippine Maritime Zones Act of 2023”—paving the way for the country to legally define its internal waters, archipelagic waters, territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf in the Philippine archipelago. 

Senator Francis Tolentino, the sponsor of the measure, said the Philippine Maritime Zones Bill will be forwarded to the secretariat of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, once enacted into law. 

Contradicting China’s claims, Tarriela said the Senate’s approval of the bill fully complies with the rulings of UNCLOS and does not provoke anything.

“None of its provisions contradict the letter of UNCLOS. Our defined maritime zones serve as the practical implementation of UNCLOS, specifically in establishing our territorial sea, contiguous zone, continental shelf, and exclusive economic zone,” Tarriela said.

He added that these zones are “not arbitrary lines drawn beyond the prescribed UNCLOS limits.”

“Therefore, if the People's Republic of China claims that our maritime zones are an abuse of legal means, it raises questions about whether their interpretation of UNCLOS differs from ours,” Tarriela said.

“Additionally, if a country is a signatory state of UNCLOS but does not believe in the applicability of its legal provisions in resolving disputes, it suggests a willingness to violate, abuse, and disrespect international law,” he continued. 

Other Philippine government officials welcomed the passage of SB 2492, including National Security Adviser, Secretary Eduardo Año, who said the bill “marks another leap” in the country’s assertiveness over its maritime domains.