Ideas that Divide the Nation Address to the 2018 Graduates on Recognition Day National College of Public Administration & Governance University of the Philippines, 22 June 2018 Our nation today is facing radical proposals to change its historic identity, its grant of regional autonomy, and its foreign policy. Because these proposals are radical and divisive, they require the deepest examination from all sectors of our society - from lawyers, public administrators, historians, political experts, businessmen, scientists, farmers, NGOs, and all other sectors in our society. I call these proposals Ideas that Divide the Nation. We should be wary of new concepts imported from foreign shores and alien to our history as a people, which could Divide the Nation and even lead to the dismemberment of the Philippine state. Let me point out a few examples of these divisive ideas that have been introduced into our national discourse.

1. 1
Ideas That Divide the Nation
Address to the 2018 Graduates on Recognition Day
National College of Public Administration & Governance
University of the Philippines, 22 June 2018
Justice Antonio T. Carpio
Allow me to warmly congratulate the 2018 graduates of the
National College of Public Administration and Governance
(NCPAG) of the University of the Philippines. I have high hopes
that you will contribute greatly to the advancement of public
governance in our country, especially in insuring the development
of our nation as a united and undivided sovereign state with its
territorial integrity and maritime zones intact.
Our nation today is facing radical proposals to change its historic
identity, its grant of regional autonomy, and its foreign policy.
Because these proposals are radical and divisive, they require the
deepest examination from all sectors of our society - from
lawyers, public administrators, historians, political experts,
businessmen, scientists, farmers, NGOs, and all other sectors in
our society. I call these proposals Ideas that Divide the Nation.
We should be wary of new concepts imported from foreign shores
and alien to our history as a people, which could Divide the
Nation and even lead to the dismemberment of the Philippine
state. Let me point out a few examples of these divisive ideas that
have been introduced into our national discourse.

2. 2
First Divisive Idea: First Nation
The first Idea that Divides the Nation is the attempt to introduce
the concept of a First Nation into our legal system. The
Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain, initialed by
the Arroyo Administration with the MILF in 2008, and which the
Supreme Court declared unconstitutional, contained a provision
designating the Muslims as the First Nation in the Philippines.
In Canada and the United States, the First Nations were the native
inhabitants of North America at the time of the arrival of the
European settlers starting in the 16th century. The European
settlers or Caucasian white people later became the majority and
dominated the earlier people - the Indians - thus creating two
distinct classes of people inhabiting the same territory. The native
inhabitants or the Indians have a different DNA and facial
features from the Caucasian white people. The Indians and the
Caucasian white people belong to different races. Clearly, there
are real First Nations in Canada and the United States. These First
Nations are thus accorded their own territory or ancestral
domains. The First Nations receive royalties for the exploitation
of natural resources in their ancestral domains.
In the Philippines, there is no First Nation. If you take the DNA
of people in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, whether Lumads,
Christians or Muslims, you will find they all belong to the same
Malay race, except probably the Aetas. Practically all the people

3. 3
of the Philippines belong to one race. They are all native
inhabitants of the Philippines. There is no foreign race that settled
in the Philippines and dominated the native inhabitants.
The native inhabitants of the Philippines were originally all
Lumads. When Arab traders arrived in Sulu in the late 15th
century, they introduced Islam and some Lumads became
Muslims. In the early 16th century, Magellan arrived in the
Philippines and some Lumads became Christians. However, the
Lumads, Muslims and Christians in the Philippines belonged to
the same race - the Malay race - as they, of course, still do today.
Thus, there is no First Nation in the Philippines.
Three thousand years ago, the first wave of Austronesian
migrants, the ancestors of the Malay race, arrived in Batanes from
Taiwan. Over the next 2,500 years, the Austronesian migrants
spread over to Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, Borneo, Indonesia,
peninsular Malaysia, central Vietnam, Micronesia, Melanesia and
Polynesia, reaching as far as Madagascar off the southeast coast
of Africa and Easter Island off the western coast of Chile in South
America. It was the widest migration of people by sea in the
history of mankind.
Before the sea-faring Austronesians arrived in the Philippines
3,000 years ago, the Philippines was inhabited by Aetas, who
came to the Philippines in an earlier wave of migrations from the
Asian mainland, possibly through land bridges. The ancient

4. 4
migrations of peoples were driven by climate change and other
natural calamities, not by conquest to subjugate a native
population. These ancient migrations were not state sponsored as
was the colonization and plunder by the Old-World nations of the
Americas, Africa, Oceana and Asia starting in the Age of
Discovery in the 15th century. We do not consider as the First
Nation those who migrated to the Philippines more than 3,000
years ago because of natural phenomena.
Historically, there is no First Nation in the Philippines. Any
attempt to designate a group of people in the Philippines as the
First Nation is historically baseless and a fraud on the rest of the
Filipino nation. Such designation is divisive and will only create
conflict within the same Filipino race.
Second Divisive Idea: Indigenous People
The second Idea that Divides the Nation is the legal concept of
indigenous people under the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of
1997 or the IPRA Law. Under the IPRA Law, Filipinos who are
Christians, and those who have adopted Western customs and
practices, constituting the vast majority of Filipinos, are not
indigenous people of the Philippines. As a legal, social and
historical concept, indigenous people are the First People or the
Native People, inhabiting a territory from the beginning, in
contrast to those who settled in, occupied or colonized the
territory later. If the Christian Filipinos like me, and almost all of

5. 5
you here, are not indigenous to the Philippines, where did we
come - from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, America or Mars?
We are definitely not Europeans, Middle Eastern, Africans or
native Americans. We certainly are not Martians. We are, of
course, beyond any shadow of doubt, indigenous to the
Philippines. We have the same DNA, belonging to the same
Malay race, as the non-Christian Lumads who are called
indigenous people under the IPRA Law. The ancestors of
Christians Filipinos were Lumads too before they converted to
Christianity. Should their descendants now be designated by law
non-indigenous to the Philippines just because their ancestors
exercised their religious freedom upon the arrival of the Spaniards
almost 500 years ago?
The fact that some native inhabitants of the Philippines embraced
Christianity, Islam or any other non-indigenous religion and
adopted Western or Middle Eastern customs and practices did not,
for sure, make them non-indigenous to the Philippines. But the
IPRA Law disqualifies them from being called indigenous
people. Under the IPRA Law, Filipino Muslims are also not
indigenous people.
The IPRA Law discriminates against the majority of native
Filipinos on the basis of religion, language, customs and
traditions. The worst injustice is that the majority of native
Filipinos like you and me are no longer considered indigenous

6. 6
people of the Philippines. Under the IPRA Law, we are non-
indigenous, meaning we are alien settlers, occupiers or colonizers
in our own country. This is historically false, divisive and should
never form part of our legal system.
Third Divisive Idea: Right to Self-Determination
The third Idea that Divides the Nation is the proposition, found in
the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law or BBL now pending before
Congress, that the BBL represents the aspiration of the
Bangsamoro people to their right to self-determination. The right
to self-determination, a recognized principle in international law,
has two meanings, depending on the socio-political environment
where it is used. First, the right to self- determination can mean
the right of an ethnic minority to self-governance within a single
indivisible state. This meaning is consistent with our Constitution.
Second, the right to self-determination can also mean the right to
secession or independence from a state. This meaning is anathema
to the Constitution and must not be allowed to be grafted into our
legal system.
There is an absolute need to clarify that the right to self-
determination proposed to be embodied in the BBL is the right to
self-governance within a single Philippine state. There should be
no ambiguity whatsoever about this. If there is no clarification, or
if there is even a shadow of doubt, then the right to self-
determination can be interpreted in the light of the long history of

7. 7
secessionist movements among the Muslim communities in
Southern Philippines. That would mean that the right to self-
determination is the right to secede. This will result in the
dismemberment of the Republic, a prospect too horrendous to
contemplate.
I once asked a Spanish judge why the Catalonia autonomous
region in Spain held a referendum on whether or not Catalonia
should secede from Spain. The Spanish judge replied that the
Spanish Constitution is silent on whether the autonomous regions
can secede or not. The central government in Madrid interprets
the silence as prohibition to secede, while Catalonia interprets the
silence as non-prohibition to secede. The Spanish judge then gave
a very sound advice: be sure that in your law granting autonomy
to any region there is a clear and categorical prohibition to secede,
including a clear and categorical prohibition to hold any
referendum on secession. Thus, we cannot incorporate into our
legal system, through silence, negligence or ignorance, the utterly
divisive idea of the right to secede in the BBL.
Fourth Divisive Idea: Enforcing
the Arbitral Ruling Means War
The fourth, and my last example of an Idea that Divides the
Nation, is the Duterte Administration’s foreign policy in the West
Philippine Sea which can be summarized in this way: if we seek

8. 8
to enforce the arbitral ruling, China will go to war against the
Philippines.
President Rodrigo Duterte has announced that he was “setting
aside” the arbitral ruling by an UNCLOS arbitral tribunal that
declared without legal effect China’s notorious nine-dashed line
in the South China Sea. The arbitral tribunal held that the
Philippines has a full 200 NM Exclusive Economic Zone in the
West Philippine Sea, a maritime area larger than the total land
area of the Philippines. By any yardstick, the landmark ruling was
an overwhelming victory for the Philippines and the Filipino
people.
However, President Rodrigo Duterte has opted not to enforce the
ruling in order to secure loans and investments from China, even
as China continues to relentlessly encroach on Philippine territory
and maritime zones in the West Philippine Sea. We all know that
the fish, oil, gas and other mineral resources in our Exclusive
Economic Zone in the West Philippine Sea are worth far more
than whatever loans and investments that can come from China.
Besides, the country’s national territory and maritime zones,
involving sovereignty and sovereign rights, are beyond any
monetary value.
The President has warned the Filipino people that China will go
to war, resulting in a massacre of Filipino soldiers, if the
Philippines insists on enforcing the arbitral ruling, as if war is the

9. 9
only means of enforcing the ruling. The President has declared
that there are only two options for the Philippines: either we talk
to China or go to war with China. There are, of course, other
options. There are many peaceful means of enforcing the ruling.
Let me mention some of these peaceful means of enforcing the
ruling.
First, since the ruling recognized our full Exclusive Economic
Zone in the West Philippine Sea, we can file an extended
continental shelf claim beyond our Exclusive Economic Zone off
the coast of Luzon. This is similar to our extended continental
shelf claim in Benham Rise in the Philippine Sea. The UN
Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, which
approves applications for an extended continental shelf, will of
course recognize the arbitral ruling issued by a tribunal created
under UNCLOS, the same Convention that created the
Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. In filing our
extended continental shelf claim off the coast of Luzon, China
will not even be a respondent or defendant.
Second, we can enter into a sea boundary agreement with
Vietnam over our overlapping extended continental shelves
beyond the Spratlys. Vietnam has already proposed that we sign
such a sea boundary agreement. Likewise, we can enter into sea
boundary agreement with Malaysia over our overlapping EEZs
between Borneo and Palawan. We can enter into these sea

10. 10
boundary agreements because the arbitral tribunal ruled that there
is no geologic feature in the Spratlys that can generate an
exclusive economic zone. These sea boundary agreements apply
the arbitral ruling by state practice, thus reinforcing the ruling. In
these sea boundary agreements, China will not even be a party.
Third, we can send our survey ships to Reed Bank, and if they are
turned back by Chinese coast guard vessels, we can bring the
matter in a new arbitration case under UNCLOS. We can demand
damages from China for preventing us from exploiting the Reed
Bank which has been declared in the arbitral ruling as part of the
Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines.
Fourth, we can file another arbitration case against China for
preventing our fishermen from fishing within the lagoon of
Scarborough Shoal, in violation of the arbitral ruling that Filipino,
Chinese and Vietnamese fishermen can fish in the territorial
waters of Scarborough Shoal. We can include in this new
arbitration the continuing destruction by Chinese fishermen of the
coral reef system in Scarborough Shoal. We can ask the arbitral
tribunal to award damages to our fishermen for the economic
losses they have suffered due to the Chinese actions.
Again, these are just some of the peaceful and legal means of
enforcing the arbitral ruling. In particular, seeking arbitration is
never a hostile act. The UN Charter expressly recognizes
arbitration as a peaceful means of settling disputes between states.

11. 11
Not a single right-thinking Filipino asserting our sovereign rights
in the West Philippine Sea has called for war against China. It is
utterly false to claim that war with China is the necessary
consequence of asserting our sovereign rights in the West
Philippine Sea. War as a means of enforcing the arbitral ruling is
simply a preposterous idea.
Our Constitution prohibits resort to war to enforce the arbitral
ruling. The Constitution expressly mandates that the Philippines
renounces war as an instrument of national policy. The UN
Charter has expressly outlawed war as a means of settling
disputes between states. If we declare war against China to
enforce the arbitral ruling, we will surely be condemned by all
members of the United Nations and even severely sanctioned by
the UN Security Council for violating international law and the
UN Charter. If the Philippines goes to war, the obvious outcome
will be the Philippines fighting not only China, but also the rest
of the world. The Philippines will be a pariah in the community
of civilized nations.
Under our Constitution, Congress has the sole power to declare
war by two-thirds vote of the House and Senate voting separately.
I have not heard a single Congressman or Senator calling for war
against China to enforce the arbitral ruling. Besides, we all know
that if we go to war against China, we will surely lose and lose

12. 12
badly. Obviously, only a fool will resort to war against China to
enforce the arbitral ruling.
War is not an option and has never been an option. That is why
when China seized Scarborough Shoal in 2012, we did not send
the Philippine marines to retake the shoal. We sent our lawyers to
The Hague to invalidate China’s nine-dashed line claim under
international law. And we won an overwhelming victory.
Therefore, we should continue resorting to international law to
enforce our sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea. We
should never waiver in enforcing the arbitral ruling in accordance
with international law.
The idea that war is the only means of enforcing the arbitral
ruling, or that war is a necessary consequence of enforcing the
ruling, is nonsensical, impractical, illegal, divisive and even
laughable. Unfortunately, the laugh is on the Filipino nation.
We all know that China is the only state that has seized Philippine
territory and maritime zones. China is the only state that is
actually a threat to the territorial sovereignty and integrity of the
Philippines. That is why our China policy – our response to the
Chinese threat in the West Philippine Sea - must not divide the
Filipino nation. The nation must be united in defending Philippine
territory and maritime zones in the West Philippine Sea against
China. When a nation is facing an unjust and unlawful aggression
from a foreign state, the leaders of the nation must unite the

13. 13
people in the defense of the state. What our national leaders
should never do is to mindlessly divide the nation, like claiming
that there will be war if we seek to enforce the arbitral ruling.
My dear graduates, we must all be steadfast in fighting Ideas that
Divide the Nation for a divided nation cannot focus on national
development, and worse, a divided nation is a weakened nation in
defending national territory and maritime zones. We must always
be on guard and resist any and all attempts to weaken the nation
in defending our national territory and maritime zones. Every
Filipino citizen, whether in government or in the private sector,
whether holding the highest or lowest position, has a solemn civic
duty to preserve, protect and defend what belongs to the Filipino
people. We owe this duty to the present and future generations of
Filipinos.
Thank you and once again, congratulations to the graduates.