Oops! Google says West PH Sea label briefly gone over tech flaw

A ‘technical issue’ caused the West Philippine Sea label to appear only as a pin on Google Maps on April 30. By Friday, May 2, Google said the label was back. — Photo from Google Maps

MANILA, Philippines — The West Philippine Sea label in Google Maps went temporarily missing due to a “technical issue,” its spokesperson said on Friday.

On April 30, the problem was discovered shortly after Google announced that it had made the label easier to see two weeks ago.

READ: West Philippine Sea no longer visible on Google Maps

“The label was temporarily missing due to a technical issue — it’s now back on Maps,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement sent to INQUIRER.net.

The digital mapping navigation platform previously said it has always used the “West Philippine Sea”  designation in parts of the South China Sea in the western section of the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

“The West Philippine Sea has always been labeled on Google Maps. We recently made this label easier to see at additional zoom levels,” a Google spokesperson also said in a statement on April 16.

Google made that clarification as several Facebook pages claimed that the West Philippine Sea on the maps was only under a “Google map pin,” which any user could indicate.

Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute also published a photo on Facebook showing that the West Philippine Sea is registered under “business” in Google.

In 2012, then President Benigno Aquino III signed an administrative order renaming South China Sea waters within the western section of the country’s EEZ as the West Philippine Sea in a bid to further assert Manila’s sovereign rights there amid Beijing’s continuous aggression.

READ: It’s official: Aquino signs order on West Philippine Sea

Aquino also directed the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority to produce and publish charts and maps of the Philippines showing the West Philippine Sea.

It was also Aquino who brought China before an international tribunal in 2013, a year after Manila’s tense standoff with Beijing over Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, which China now has effective control of.

The 2016 arbitral award ruled heavily in favor of Manila and has effectively invalidated Beijing’s assertion of sovereignty in almost the entire South China Sea, including most of the West Philippine Sea.