For many years now, Filipinos have been raising concern over the environmental destruction from China’s artificial island-building in the South China Sea. Always, what has been lacking is the lack of official support for the complaints. In March 2019, retired Philippine government officials filed a complaint before the International Criminal Court or ICC against Chinese President Xi Jinping over his country’s “environmentally destructive and illegal reclamations and artificial island-building activities” in the West Philippine Sea. Along with the swarming of Chinese militia vessels and prevention of Filipinos from fishing within sovereign waters, the acts constituted crimes against humanity, according to the complainants – the late foreign secretary Albert del Rosario and former ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.

Destroying the reefs. (2023, September 18). The Philippine Star, p. 12.