Case under The State MAGALLONA v. ERMITA [August 16, 2011] 655 SCRA 476 Carpio J. FACTS BACKGROUND.

. Congress passed Republic Act No. 3046 demarcating the maritime baselines of the Philippines as an archipelagic state pursuant to the framing of the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone (UNCLOS 1) in 1958. o On its desire to improve the earlier law and in order to address the demands of UNCLOS 2, Republic Act No. 5446 was enacted [when?]. However, typographical errors and reserving the drawing of baselines around Sabah in North Borneo were the only salient points of the amendatory statute. o In March 2009, Congress amended Republic Act 3046 by enacting Republic Act No. 9522 in compliance with the terms of UNCLOS 1 3. The third improvement on the law, inter alia, shortened the baseline, optimize the location of some base points around the Philippine archipelago and classified adjacent territories namely, the Kalayaan Group of Islands and Scarborough Shoalas regime of islands whose islands generate their own applicable maritime zones. [please define what a regime island mean and why that definition led to the filing of this case] THE CASE. Petitioners beset [is this the best verb to use?] RA 9522 on two principal grounds: (1) it reduces the Philippine maritime territory and logically, the reach of the Philippine states sovereign power and (2) it opens the countrys waters landward of the baselines to maritime passage by all levels and aircrafts. o Petitioners filed writs of certiorari and prohibition assailing the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 9522 adjusting the countrys archipelagic baselines and classifying the baseline regime of nearby territories. ISSUE Whether or not Republic Act No. 9522 is unconstitutional. RULING] The Supreme Court found no basis to declare RA 9522 as unconstitutional. 1. RA 9522 is a statutory tool to demarcate the countrys maritime zones and continental shelf under UNCLOS 3, not to delineate Philippine territory. 2. The Philippines still exercises sovereignty over and jurisdiction over the Kalayaan Group of Islands and Scarborough Shoal as explicitly stated in Section 2 of RA 9522. 3. More importantly, RA 9522 recognizes the archipelagic States archipelago
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United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

and the waters enclosed by their baselines as one cohesive entity prevents the treatment of their islands as separate islands under UNCLOS 3. 4. Absent an UNCLOS 3 compliant baselines law, an archipelagic State like the Philippines will find itself devoid of internationally acceptable baselines from where the breath of its maritime zones and continental shelf is measured. *ASM 6/21/2013