DFA focusing on PH bid for UN Security Council seat
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is carefully studying the filing of a resolution before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to address ongoing tension in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), but admitted its immediate focus is on the country’s bid for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro revealed this before the House of Representatives’ committee on appropriations’ Tuesday hearing when Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Partylist Rep. Leila De Lima asked about the matter.
De Limarecently filed a resolution urging the Philippine government to introduce a resolution before the UNGA, calling on China to respect the 2016 Arbitral Award.
“The DFA is looking for a strategic, deliberate, and calibrated approach and this is what we need to promote, the resolution that you have mentioned, the UNGA will be meeting this September and we are consulting our mission in New York on the possibilities and probabilities of having this resolution passed but we are looking at it and studying it carefully,” Lazaro said.
“[B]eing frank and candid, the focus of DFA is to gather more support because of our UN Security Council candidature, so we just want to finish this rather than have this election, which will happen in June next year. The resolution is still very much in our minds,” she further explained.
In January, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. urged foreign envoys to back the Philippines’ bid for a nonpermanent seat in the UN Security Council for the 2027 to 2028 term, touting the country’s experience in multilateral diplomacy, peacebuilding, consensus and cooperation. The UN Security Council is composed of China, France, the Russian Federation, United Kingdom and the United States as permanent members and 10 non-permanent members.
It is tasked to maintain international peace and security. The Philippines last held a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council in the 2004 to 2005 term.
On August 27, De Lima and other members of the WPS bloc lodged House Resolution No. 192 following China’s recent aggression in the WPS.
Under the proposed measure, De Lima and other lawmakers called on the executive department, through the DFA, to introduce the resolution before the UNGA.
In September last year, the DFA revealed its plans to file a resolution before the UNGA, which was announced by Nueva Ecija 2nd District Rep. Joseph Gilbert Violago during the plenary deliberations on the 2025 General Appropriations Bill.
Then ACT-CIS party-list Rep. and now Senator Erwin Tulfo likewise urged the DFA to sponsor a resolution before the UNGA that would eventually allow the international body to intervene in the WPS dispute.
He filed House Resolution No. 1766 on June 10 of the same year.
China’s continued aggression in the region is based on its assertion of sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, including most of the West Philippine Sea.
It continues to reject the July 2016 Arbitral Award, which effectively dismissed its claims and ruled in favor of Manila.
The landmark ruling stemmed from a case filed by Manila in 2013, a year after its tense standoff with Beijing over Panatag Shoal, whose lagoon the latter now effectively controls. /gsg
