Article 1 National Territory Explanation PDF

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1987 Philippines Constitution Provision Explanation. The National Territory...

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ARTICLE 1 : NATIONAL TERRITORY ”The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the Philippines.”

The National Territory is a portion or space over which a nation-state claims exclusive legitimate control. The Philippines together with Indonesia and other archipelagic country introduced the idea of Archipelagic Doctrine in the International Conference on the Law of the Sea, wherein now it is a principle in which we have long been adhering to. This doctrine means, therefore, that the country, with its thousands of islands and many seas, should be considered as a political unit for reasons of history, law, geography, economics, and security. Also, when questions involving territorial conflicts arise, the Philippines uses this doctrine to support its territorial claims. To better understand, archipelago is a chain or group of islands that is considered as one integral unit and the created straight baseline in the outermost of the archipelago is enclosing all the territories around, between, and connecting that straight base line. Those are our ownerships and rights to claim especially our historic waters, air, seas, and other domains that might also belong to us in the future. It is in our archipelago where we have long exercised sovereignty and jurisdiction except for exclusive economic zone for we do not own it but we have sovereign rights to control its economic resources. Therefore, every country must know their own boundary and territory to avoid disputes with other nation in fact there are laws promulgated by United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a constitution for world’s oceans and seas.

An example is the growing threat in maritime conflicts such as after the Scarborough standoff in 2012 where Filipino fishermen were forcibly turned away by Chinese Marine Surveillance vessels and constructions of artificial islands over the disputed islands, this provoked the Philippine government to file an arbitration case in 2013 to justify its claim and by 2016 the Tribunal’s decision is in favor of the Philippines and China has violated the country’s sovereign rights. Another territory that our country was claiming is Sabah which is located on the north-eastern tip of Borneo about 500 km from the Philippines. Although Malaysia controls it, Manila says it was a 1961 gift from the Sultan of Brunei to the Sultan of Sulu, now a region of the Philippines but Shafie Apdal, joined Sabah leaders from across the political spectrum in blasting recent Philippine efforts to assert a claim that dates back about 60 years....