De Lima demands full disclosure of Duterte’s ‘secret’ deal with China

July 2, 2019

Opposition Senator Leila de Lima urged the Duterte administration Tuesday to make public the "secret deal"  President Rodrigo Duterte entered with China allowing Chinese to fish in the country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea.

De Lima, a former justice secretary, said no executive agreement or even international treaty can supersede the Philippine Constitution because the power to enter into executive agreements and international treaties is derived from it.

"Duterte's admission that he struck a deal with China in 2016 allowing Chinese fishermen to fish in our EEZ is a shocking revelation," De Lima said in her recent Dispatch from Crame No. 456.

"This means that Duterte secretly entered into a bilateral fisheries agreement that should properly have been the subject of an international treaty because it lays down new policy not established by legislation," she added.

Last June 26, Duterte said he cannot bar Chinese fishermen from fishing in the Philippines' EEZ, locally referred to as the West Philippine Sea (WPS), due to a "mutual agreement" he made with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo later confirmed that the agreement with China was "informal rather than documented" and "is being enforced in a way that we're being allowed to fish there in the areas that fishermen could not at the time."

But, the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal invalidated China's claim of ownership and sovereignty over the entire islands in the South China Sea as it ruled that Philippines has exclusive sovereign rights over it, said De Lima.

China, however, refuses to comply with the verdict. DMS