These “solutions” don’t make us any different from the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland who had to run faster just to remain in place. It didn’t declare that we have “sovereignty” over the “West Philippine Sea,” an area which the decision didn’t even name as the subject of the dispute! Some of them think that the international system is just like the domestic system, the system we have in our country. But those who say that assume that the effects of legality in the domestic system is the same in the international system. You cannot compel any country to do anything that it didn’t consent to.

Source: Manila Times May 30, 2018 16:24 UTC