MAGALLONA VS.EXECUTIVE SECRETARY The demarcation of a boundary line amounts to laying down by July 16, 2011 means of boundary pillars, monuments or buoys, and permanent erections of other kinds, along the topographical FACTS: conformations of the territories to be separated by it. In 1961, RA 3046 was passed, demarcating the maritime baselines of the PH as an archipelagic state. It remained unchanged for 5 decades. In 2009, the Congress amended RA 3046 by enacting RA 9522, the statute subject of this case. Demarcation line refers to the boundary of a specific area. This o The change was prompted by the passage term is commonly used in international law. It is a provisional of UNCLOS III, which prescribes the water- border having the function of separating territories under land ratio, length, and contour of baselines of archipelagic States like the different jurisdictions. Philippines and sets the deadline for the filing of application for the extended continental shelf Complying with these requirements, RA 9522: 1) shortened one baseline, Generally, a maritime boundary is delineated through a 2) optimized the location of some basepoints particular measure from a jurisdiction's coastline. Although in around the Philippine archipelago and 3) classified adjacent territories, namely, the some countries the term maritime Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) and the boundary represent borders of a maritime nation[3] and are Scarborough Shoal, as regimes of islands recognized by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the whose islands generate their own applicable Sea, they usually serve to identify international waters. maritime zones. Regime of islands are islands that are naturally formed areas of land, surrounded by water, which are above water at high tide. Under the regime of islands doctrine, the islands will generate their own maritime RA 9522 dismembers a large portion of national zones. “Rocks which cannot sustain human territory habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.” That RA 9522 dismembers a large portion of the national Petitioners assail the validity of RA 9522 on the territory because it discards the pre-UNCLOS III demarcation of following grounds: Philippine territory under the Treaty of Paris and related 1) RA 9522 reduces Philippine maritime treaties, successively encoded in the definition of national territory, and logically, the reach of the territory under the 1935, 1973 and 1987 Constitutions - Philippine states sovereign power, in UNTENABLE violation of Article 1 of the 1987 Constitution, embodying the terms of the Treaty of Paris11 and ancillary treaties, and 2) RA 9522 opens the country’s waters landward of the baselines to maritime passage by all vessels and aircrafts, That this constitutional definition trumps any treaty or statutory undermining Philippine sovereignty and provision denying the Philippines’ sovereign control over national security, contravening the country’s waters, beyond the territorial sea recognized at the time of the nuclear-free policy, and damaging marine Treaty of Paris, that Spain supposedly ceded to the United resources, in violation of relevant States. constitutional provisions. Respondents defended RA 9522 as the country’s compliance with the terms of UNCLOS III, preserving Philippine territory over the KIG or Scarborough Shoal. ISSUE: WON RA 9553 is unconstitutional. NO. RULING: HELD: UNCLOS III has nothing to do with the acquisition (or loss) of territory. It is a multilateral treaty regulating, among others: 1) sea-use rights over maritime zones (i.e., the territorial RA 9522 is a Statutory Tool to Demarcate the waters [12 nautical miles from the baselines], 2) contiguous zone [24 nautical miles from the baselines], Country’s Maritime Zones and Continental Shelf Under 3) exclusive economic zone [200 nautical miles from the UNCLOS III, not to Delineate Philippine Territory baselines]), and 4) continental shelves that UNCLOS III delimits. UNCLOS III was the culmination of decades-long negotiations among United Nations members to codify norms regulating the conduct of States in the world’s oceans The delimitation of a boundary refers to all the proceedings and submarine areas, recognizing coastal and archipelagic connected with the determination of a boundary line in a States graduated authority over a limited span of waters and treaty, an arbitral award or a boundary commission’s report as submarine lands along their coasts. the case may be. A boundary line may be delimited as either the watershed or the crest line of a particular mountain range IN THIS CASE, baselines laws such as RA 9522 are enacted by or as the median of a named river UNCLOS III States parties to mark-out specific basepoints along their coasts from which baselines are drawn, either straight or contoured, to serve as geographic starting points to measure the breadth of the maritime zones and continental shelf. NOT inconsistent with the THEREFORE. assuming that baselines are relevant for this purpose. baselines laws are nothing but statutory Philippines Claim of Sovereignty Over these Areas mechanisms for UNCLOS III States parties to delimit with precision the extent of their maritime zones and Use of regime of islands weaken our territorial claim continental shelves. UNTENABLE: IT in fact increased PH total maritime space On the contrary. namely: claim over that area 1) the exercise of sovereignty over territorial waters (Article 2) UNTENABLE: A comparison of the configuration of the 2) the jurisdiction to enforce customs. enlargement or. In turn. territorial sea and exclusive economic zone) by 145. the KIG and the Scarborough Shoal lie outside of the baselines drawn around the Philippine archipelago.216 square nautical miles RA 9522’s Use of the Framework of Regime of Islands to Determine the Maritime Zones of the KIG and the . weakens our territorial treaty-based rights. baselines drawn under RA 3046 and RA 9522 immigration. diminution of territory. increased the Philippines total maritime space (covering its internal waters. prejudicing the livelihood of subsistence fishermen NOTE: UNCLOS III and its ancillary baselines laws play no role in the acquisition. as petitioners claim. and 3) sanitation laws in the contiguous zone (Article 33). Under RA 3046. The baselines of the Philippines would still have to be drawn in accordance with RA 9522 because this is the only way to draw the baselines in conformity with UNCLOS III. but from the outermost islands and drying reefs of waters the archipelago That the KIGs (and Scarborough Shoals) exclusion from the Philippine archipelagic baselines results in the loss of about 15. and to measure the breadth of the space and submarine areas within which States parties exercise applicable maritime zones of the KIG. save for at least nine basepoints that continental shelf (Article 77 RA 9522 skipped to optimize the location of basepoints and adjust the length of one baseline (and thus comply with UNCLOS III’s limitation on the maximum length of baselines).000 square nautical miles of territorial waters. as under RA 9522. by optimizing the location of basepoints. and The configuration of the baselines drawn under RA 3046 and RA 4) the right to exploit the living and non-living resources 9522 shows that RA 9522 merely followed the basepoints in the exclusive economic zone (Article 56) and mapped by RA 3046. The baselines cannot be drawn from the boundaries or other portions of the rectangular area delineated in the Treaty of Exclusion of KIG and SS resulted in loss of territorial Paris. PH territory embraces all waters within rectangular area That the Philippine territory embraces the islands and all the waters within the rectangular area delimited in the Treaty of Paris. this gives NOTICE to the rest of That RA 9522s use of UNCLOS IIIs regime of islands framework the international community of the scope of the maritime to draw the baselines. This undeniable cartographic HELD: fact takes the wind out of petitioner’s argument branding RA 9522 as a statutory renunciation of the Philippines claim over the KIG. RA 9522. fiscal. Scarborough Shoal.