The Philippines is seeking U.N. validation to extend its continental shelf in the South China Sea and secure “exclusive” rights to exploit undersea resources, Manila’s foreign office said, amid heightened territorial tensions with China over the waterway. The Department of Foreign Affairs said its mission to the United Nations had submitted documentation with the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, or CLCS, on Friday to “register the country’s entitlement to an extended continental shelf, or ECS, in the West Palawan Region” in the sea.
“Today we secure our future by making a manifestation of our exclusive right to explore and exploit natural resources in our ECS entitlement,” said Marshall Louis M. Alferez, assistant secretary for Maritime and Ocean Affairs at the department.
The department indicated that Manila intended to stretch the Philippine continental shelf beyond the outer limits of the country’s 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, in the South China Sea, but it did not say by how much more. Philippine territorial waters in the sea are believed to be rich in oil and mineral deposits.
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