Interference not allowed Retired Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, after ending an illustrious stint at the Supreme Court, has dedicated his law expertise to ensuring that foreign influence does not impinge on sovereignty.
Photograph courtesy of Supreme Court
Parameters provided In an interview with ‘Straight Talk’ hosts Chito Lozada (left) and Teddy Montelibano (right), retired Associate Justice Antonio Carpio underscored that the arbitral award should guide the country in preserving its rights over the West Philippine Sea.
Screengrab from Straight Talk
Magistrate Antonio Tirol Carpio left the Supreme Court after 18 years as an associate justice, hundreds of decisions and opinions, and a docket with no backlog.
But years after his retirement, the law remains at the center of his public work, particularly the 2016 Arbitral Award and the Philippines’ rights in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
In a recent interview on DAILY TRIBUNE’s Straight Talk, retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio returned to the issue as he has done extensively in local and international fora: by tracing the dispute back to the law.
He began with the 12 July 2016 Arbitral Award, which he said is final and legally binding.
Under the award, he said, Ayungin Shoal is part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, giving the country exclusive sovereign rights to explore and exploit its natural resources and to erect artificial structures there.
Carpio then laid out the principle of freedom of navigation.
“Any country in the world can send its ship to Ayungin Shoal without asking permission from any state, without giving prior notice to any state, without conducting prior consultations with any state,” he said.
The Philippines, however, has entered into what the Department of Foreign Affairs called a provisional understanding with China covering resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal.
Carpio identified three features of the arrangement: prior notice to China before a resupply mission, prior consultation before the vessel proceeds to Ayungin Shoal, and on-site inspection at sea by the Chinese Coast Guard.
For Carpio, those conditions were at odds with the rights he said the Philippines secured under the Arbitral Award.
“We have agreed to give up our sovereign rights,” he said, describing his view of the arrangement.
Arbitral ruling final
He also questioned the description of the arrangement as a “provisional understanding,” arguing that the Arbitral Award had already become final and that China and the Philippines had different interpretations of the procedure.
His concern became sharper when he discussed the possibility of expanding the arrangement beyond Ayungin Shoal.
Carpio said the DFA had expressed willingness to make the understanding cover the entire West Philippine Sea, including resupply missions to Pag-asa Island.
“Why do we restrict ourselves and then subordinate our rights to China?” he asked.
Carpio said that while the current arrangement concerned Ayungin Shoal, extending the same conditions to Pag-asa would mean giving prior notice, engaging in prior consultation and allowing on-site inspection of cargo before resupply missions.
“How can we fix the landing strip in Pagasa if we cannot bring materials there?” he said.
The issue has become part of the West Philippine Sea work that Carpio has continued after leaving the Court.
Journalism flair
Born in Davao City, Carpio graduated valedictorian and cum laude from the University of the Philippines College of Law in 1975 and placed sixth in the Bar examinations that same year.
Before law, he earned a degree in Economics from Ateneo de Manila University in 1970.
His student years were also spent in editorial work. At the UP College of Law, he was chairman of the Editorial Board of the Philippine Law Journal.
He was editor-in-chief of The Guidon, the Ateneo school paper, and managing editor of the Philippine Collegian at UP.
After graduating from law school, Carpio entered private practice and founded the Carpio Villaraza and Cruz Law firm.
He later became a professorial lecturer at the UP College of Law from 1983 to 1992. That year, President Fidel Ramos appointed him Chief Presidential Legal Counsel, with Cabinet rank. In that position, he worked on reforms in the telecommunications, shipping, civil aviation and insurance industries.
He also served on the UP Board of Regents from 1993 to 1998.
In 2001, Carpio was sworn in as a member of the Supreme Court at age 52.
During his years on the Court, he penned 935 decisions, 79 dissenting opinions, 30 concurring opinions, 13 separate opinions and four concurring and dissenting opinions.
Shortly after his appointment, he launched the Supreme Court e-library, described as the first full-text searchable and retrievable online law library in the Philippines and among the first in Asia.
He later served as chair of the Supreme Court’s Second Division and as chair of the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
Carpio retired from the Court on 26 October 2019, upon reaching the compulsory retirement age of 70.
His years in public service were recognized with several awards and honors, including the Presidential Medal of Merit in 1998 for “distinguished and exemplary service” to the Republic.
He has also received the Outstanding Achievement Award in Law from the Ateneo de Manila Alumni Association, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Ateneo de Davao Alumni Association, and recognition from the UP Alumni Association, including as Outstanding UP Alumnus in Public International Law in 2015 and as one of the association’s three Most Outstanding Alumni in 2017.
He was also conferred honorary Doctor of Laws degrees by Ateneo de Davao University, the University of the Philippines and Ateneo de Manila University.
The West Philippine Sea, meanwhile, remains a subject on which Carpio has lectured extensively.
In 2015, the DFA sponsored him on a world lecture tour on the West Philippine Sea issue. He presented the Philippines’ perspective before think tanks and universities in 30 cities across 17 countries.
He also published his research and analysis in the e-book The South China Sea Dispute: Philippine Sovereign Rights and Jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea.
In the Straight Talk interview, Carpio again returned to the Arbitral Award and to the question of what the Philippines should do to preserve the rights it recognized.
He warned that China could later invoke the resupply arrangement to argue that the Philippines had accepted limitations on its sovereign rights.
“China will later raise this,” he said. “You accepted thereafter that you don’t have sovereign right voluntarily.”
For Carpio, the remedy was to end the arrangement.
“I’ve told them, cut and cut cleanly, get out of that agreement,” he said.
He proposed that the Philippines resupply Ayungin Shoal through other means, including airdrops, drones and fast boats, saying the country should act consistently with freedom of navigation.
Carpio retired from the Supreme Court in 2019. The decisions and opinions he wrote remain part of his judicial record.
And in the West Philippine Sea debate, he continues to return to the same foundation: the rights recognized under the 2016 Arbitral Award, and the consequences, as he sees them, of any subsequent act that could waive or diminish those rights.
