NAMRIA: West Philippine Sea has been on official maps since 2012

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February 18, 2026 | 4:48pm

MANILA, Philippines — The government's mapping agency pushed back on Wednesday, February 18, against claims that the West Philippine Sea lacks coordinates and does not exist on Philippine maps.

In a statement, the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) clarified that the area has been consistently labeled across all its official maps since 2012 and that its maritime boundary does not require a simple list of coordinates to be legally defined.

The West Philippine Sea label appears on all the government's administrative maps, topographic maps, thematic maps, and nautical charts used for navigation — all produced in compliance with Administrative Order 29, signed by then-President Benigno Aquino III in 2012, the statement read.

"Since 2012, the Philippines has formally used the name West Philippine Sea in government publications," NAMRIA said in a statement released Wednesday. "In accordance with this policy, NAMRIA places the label consistently across its official maps and charts."

Why is there no simple coordinate list

NAMRIA addressed directly the argument that the West Philippine Sea has no coordinates — a claim that implies the Philippines has little to stand on in defending its rights in the tense waterways. 

Under international law, it explained, the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extends up to 200 nautical miles from its archipelagic baselines — creating a continuous curved boundary, not a polygon with fixed corner points.

The West Philippine Sea is the part of the South China Sea that overlaps with the Philippines' EEZ.

"Because of this, a short list of coordinates would not accurately describe the maritime limit," NAMRIA said. 

The boundary is instead encoded in precise geospatial data derived from the baselines defined in Republic Act 9522, the 2009 law that formally established the country's archipelagic baselines. 

Navigation systems and mapping software use this data to compute the limit correctly.

NAMRIA's nautical charts, it added, follow international hydrographic standards, are used by both Philippine and foreign vessels, and are submitted to the International Hydrographic Organization. This, in turn, integrates Philippine maritime data into the global maritime record.

NAMRIA did not name any official in its statement, but the clarification directly addresses claims Sen. Rodante Marcoleta has made on two separate occasions this month.

On February 3, during a Senate plenary debate with Sen. Kiko Pangilinan over Senate Resolution 256 — which calls out Chinese officials' remarks against Philippine officials over the West Philippine Sea — Marcoleta said: "I would like to believe that there has not been any specific computation or coordinates of the West Philippine Sea."

The following day, February 4, Marcoleta appeared before a Commission on Appointments hearing where he suggested the Philippines might reconsider its claims over the Kalayaan Island Group. He argued that certain features in the area lie beyond the country's 200-nautical-mile EEZ.

The two instances reignited a debate that first erupted a year earlier. During a House tri-committee hearing on disinformation on Feb. 4, 2025 — when Marcoleta was still the SAGIP party-list representative — he told his colleagues: "There is nothing as West Philippine Sea [...] That is a creation by us [...] There is no West Philippine Sea."

What international law actually says

Retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio has already rebutted Marcoleta's coordinates argument, saying UNCLOS does not require a coastal state to announce the coordinates of its EEZ outer limits for those limits to be legally valid. 

The EEZ flows automatically from a state's established baselines — which the Philippines set through RA 9522 — and Carpio cited the 1969 North Sea Continental Shelf cases and Articles 76 and 77 of UNCLOS in support.

The clarification comes as relations between Manila and Beijing have grown visibly more strained since late 2025, after China installed a new ambassador in Manila. 

Under Ambassador Jing Quan, who presented his credentials to the president in December, the embassy adopted a markedly more combative public messaging, issuing lengthy statements calling out Philippine officials by name for their statements on the West Philippine Sea, including PCG spokesperson Jay Tarriela and several sitting senators. 

The tensions boiled over in January after Tarriela featured a satirical image of Chinese President Xi Jinping in a university forum presentation. This prompted the embassy to file protests with Malacañang, the DFA, and the PCG simultaneously. The Senate pushed back, passing a resolution that condemned the embassy's conduct as inconsistent with basic diplomatic norms.  

Marcoleta had weighed in on that episode and suggested the Philippines consider sharing the West Philippine Sea with China.

Republic Act 12064, or the Philippine Maritime Zones Act, signed in November 2024, formally defines the West Philippine Sea as the country's maritime zones on the western side of the archipelago, covering its territorial sea, EEZ, and maritime features, including Bajo de Masinloc and the Kalayaan Island Group.

— with reports by Jean Mangaluz