Deputy Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said on Sunday that the alleged gentlemen’s agreement between former president Rodrigo R. Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping in connection with the highly contested West Philippine Sea (WPS) is “constitutionally void.”

The agreement, if any, is tantamount to the surrender of the Philippines’ sovereign rights over its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), Gonzales said in a news release.

“Such an agreement will be equivalent to a new national policy, which must be enshrined in a treaty to be submitted to the Senate for ratification before it can take effect,” the chair of the House Special Committee on WPS explained.

Gonzales reiterated that Ayungin Shoal is part of the country’s EEZ as reaffirmed by the 2016 arbitral ruling on the South China Sea case.

For the alleged agreement to be legally binding, Gonzales said there are necessary criteria that should be satisfied.

“It must be in the form of an Executive Agreement,” Gonzales said. (PNA)

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