West PH Sea body rejects Chinese Embassy’s ‘false, misleading’ claims

MANILA, Philippines — National Maritime Council (NMC) chief Alexander Lopez does not see the need to repeatedly rebut the several claims of Beijing’s embassy in Manila.

Chinese Embassy Deputy Spokesperson Guo Wei accused the country of using Filipino fisherfolk to spark tensions, questioning its term “maritime zones”, among other claims.

“We will not answer that point by point because we have previously answered that, so no need to come with those rebuttals anymore,” Lopez said in a public briefing. 

“We want to come up with a higher ground, we discuss issues and we do not discuss personalities,” he added.

‘Staging provocation’, ‘maritime zones’ addressed by NMC 

The verbal tussle between the body that oversees the country’s maritime and archipelagic policy, and the Chinese Embassy began when, on January 8, Guo accused the Philippine government of “staging provocations” using Filipino fisherfolk.

READ: PH logs 2026’s first Chinese harassment in Scarborough Shoal

The NMC on January 12, called the claim “preposterous and completely false,” saying Filipino fisherfolk are “civilians lawfully pursuing their livelihoods within the Philippines’ maritime zones.”

On the same date, Guo also responded and zeroed in on NMC’s remark on “maritime zones”, asserting that there is no such concept in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

NMC chief Alexander Lopez called this claim misleading.

Lopez explained that while the term “maritime zone” is not in Unclos, the term actually refers to areas, namely: territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and extended continental shelf. 

“We are actually using maritime zones and this term is commonly used in academia and the government,” Lopez said during the briefing.

Guo also accused Manila of “deliberately” blurring the lines between EEZ. 

Nine-dash line ‘fairy tale’

It was Mamamayang Liberal party-list Rep. Leila De Lima who responded to Guo, saying the official’s point “does not really matter.”

READ: PH boat ‘ignores’ China radio challenge at Scarborough – Beijing

“The problem from the very start is China’s nine-dash line claim,” De Lima said in a statement.

“Regardless of the distinction between a territorial sea and an EEZ, it does not really matter because China itself is guilty of the most absurd disregard for legal distinctions…” De Lima said.

Through its “nine-dash-line”— updated to “10-dash line,” in 2023 to include areas in self-ruled Taiwan — Beijing claims sovereignty in almost the entire South China Sea, but Manila brought the matter to an international court which effectively ruled in favor of its sovereign rights in 2016.

“There is nothing that blurs the distinction between territorial sea and EEZ more than China’s preposterous and infantile nine-dash line fairy tale that, surprisingly, it keeps on using in serious international legal forums, expecting the rest of the world to be so stupid as to take it seriously,” De Lima further said. /gsg