Philippines eyes taking sea dispute with China to UN General Assembly

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is currently studying the possibility of taking its long-running maritime dispute with China to the United Nations General Assembly.

During Wednesday's (September 18) budget plenary debates at the House of Representatives, the lawmaker sponsoring the budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it has not ruled out the filing of a UN General Assembly resolution on the country's territorial claims in the West Philippine Sea.

"The DFA really plans to file a resolution with the UN General Assembly on the Philippines' territorial claims in the West Philippine Sea," Rep. Joseph Gilbert Violago (Nueva Ecija, 2nd District) said during the budget hearing for the DFA.

The DFA's decision will be based on "necessity and prudence," the lawmaker said.

Philstar.com has reached out to the DFA for comment and will update this story with their response.

Violago was speaking on behalf of the DFA because he sponsored its budget proposal in the plenary, as practiced in House procedures.

A UN General Assembly resolution is a formal statement of opinion or recommendation adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, the main deliberative body of the UN.

While the resolutions are not legally binding, they are seen as expressions of the international community’s views and can influence international norms and policies.

"The department appreciates the recommendation and continues to study its implication,” the lawmaker said. 

Even as it studies the recommendation, the DFA maintains its position on the UN General Assembly as a body designed for hearing out human development issues that "concern humanity as a whole," he added.

Lawmakers such as Sen. Risa Hontiveros and Rep. Erwin Tulfo (ACT-CIS Partylist) have been pushing the executive department to bring up China's incursions in the West Philippine Sea at the UN General Assembly to pressure it into ceasing its aggressive conduct.

In 2023, the Senate passed a resolution calling on the government to sponsor a resolution before the UN General Assembly that will call out China's harassment of Filipino fishers in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. 

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