The 2016 international arbitral award is one of the Philippines’ biggest and clearest legal victories before the world. An impartial tribunal in The Hague rejected Beijing’s nine-dash line, affirmed that lies squarely within the country’s exclusive economic zone, and established that China has no historic rights to the resources in the waters of what came to be known as the West Philippine Sea.

Low tide elevations such as Mischief Reef generate no maritime zones and fall under the country’s jurisdiction. The award was final and binding under international law. The community of nations recognized it. Only China refused to accept it.

A decade later, under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the ruling remains unenforced while Manila continues to entertain proposals that retired Associate Justice Antonio Carpio has described as a constitutional suicide.

In a television interview, Carpio exposed the trap embedded in Beijing’s definition of “joint development,” which the Marcos administration, under pressure to secure fuel sources, appears willing to negotiate.

According to China’s Foreign Ministry website, the term “joint development” means Beijing owns the oil and gas; it merely allows other countries to participate as a gesture of friendship.

That formulation directly contradicts the Philippine Constitution, which reserves exclusively for Filipino citizens the use and enjoyment of the marine resources within the country’s EEZ. It also nullifies the arbitral award that gave the Philippines sovereign rights over Reed Bank.

Former Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. correctly terminated the memorandum of understanding in 2020 after China demanded the removal of two critical provisions: that the oil and gas belong to the Philippines and that the contract would be governed by Philippine law.

Any agreement that deletes those clauses violates the Constitution and repudiates the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s decision.

Malacañang has repeatedly stressed that Philippine interests “will be safeguarded” under any joint exploration. Citing the Middle East crisis as justification, the Marcos administration in late March 2026 initiated talks with Beijing on a joint oil and gas exploration deal.

This is the same administration that has never dispatched a Philippine drill ship to Reed Bank under naval escort. Forum Energy, holder of Service Contract 72, possesses both the capital and access to foreign technology.

Malaysia and Indonesia confronted identical Chinese threats and successfully surveyed and drilled within their own exclusive economic zones. They succeeded because their governments demonstrated the political will that Manila continues to lack.

Carpio assesses that the failure is “a matter of political will,” with immediate and costly consequences.

Manila now imports expensive liquefied natural gas while billions of dollars in Philippine resources lie idle beneath waters the tribunal declared to be sovereign Philippine territory. Every day of inaction deepens the energy crisis.

China’s gray-zone tactics — ramming vessels near Pag-asa Island, swarming shoals, and fortifying artificial islands — persist precisely because they have incurred no meaningful cost for defying The Hague tribunal’s ruling.

The United States and its allies conduct freedom-of-navigation operations in the same waters by citing the arbitral award. The Philippines, the party that secured the victory, has refused to enforce it for its own economic benefit.

Marcos’ foreign policy has maintained firm public statements. Rhetoric, however, without corresponding enforcement, is merely performance.

The decisive test is Reed Bank. Dispatching a drill ship protected by the Philippine Navy, and supported by American and Australian warships that have been offered, would constitute the first genuine act of enforcement.

It would demonstrate to Beijing that the arbitral award was not a diplomatic suggestion but the enforceable law of the sea.

Active enforcement may also solve the energy shortage on Philippine terms rather than China’s.

Joint development on Beijing’s terms is not a compromise but an abandonment of our sovereignty.

The Constitution, the international arbitral tribunal, and our basic national dignity require more.