The Senate, after less than an hour of debate yesterday, passed on second reading the bill delineating the Philippines? archipelagic baselines.

The chamber approved the Malaca?ang-certified bill after Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, chairman of the committee on foreign relations, delivered her 20-minute sponsorship speech and her colleagues interpellated her on the proposal for just 30 minutes.

In approving the bill hastily, Santiago and other senators said Congress should beat the May l3, 2009 deadline of the United Nations for the Philippines to submit its claim for an extended continental shelf under the UN convention on the law of the sea.

Under that convention, the Philippines is considered an archipelagic state and as such, has a right to draw its archipelagic baselines. The convention provides that ?an archipelagic state may draw straight archipelagic baselines joining the outermost points of the outermost islands.?

It took the Senate more than a year to craft a compromise bill acceptable to all its members due to the previous disagreement over the Arroyo administration?s position that the disputed Kalayaan islands and the Scarborough Shoal should be treated as a ?regime of islands? instead of being enclosed within the baselines.

Senators Aquilino Pimentel, Jamby Madrigal and Panfilo Lacson withdrew their objection to the Palace stand only after the majority senators agreed that Kalayaan islands and the Scarborough Shoal, despite being classified as a regime of islands, will be subject to the sovereignty of the Philippine republic.

Section 3 of the baselines bill states: ?This Act shall be without prejudice to Philippine dominion and sovereignty over all portions of the national territory as defined under Article l of the Constitution of the Philippines and by applicable laws.?

?We are constrained to observe the ?regime of islands? principle with respect to Spratlys, because it is a flashpoint in Asia, subject to conflicting territorial claims by several Asian countries,? Santiago said. Fel V. Maragay