Before lawyers draw lines on a map, there is a fisherman trying to find his way home.
That thought stayed with me after speaking recently before Filipino and Vietnamese lawyers, legal academics and law students at a conference jointly convened by the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and the Vietnam Lawyers’ Association.
We lawyers tend to see the South China Sea through maritime zones, sovereignty claims, UNCLOS provisions, arbitral awards and geopolitics.
Governments see national interest and security. Military strategists see sea lanes and strategic positions.
But for the fisherman, it is simpler. The sea is his workplace. It is where he finds food and income. It is an inherited way of life.
So perhaps we should begin there.
What happens to people who depend on the sea when competing maritime claims, environmental destruction and coercion converge?
A fisherman driven from his traditional fishing ground loses his livelihood. Another may reach it only to find the reef destroyed and the fish gone.
Different causes. Same consequence. A family loses food and income.
That is why the maritime dispute cannot be reduced to who gets to draw the line. The law must also ask who gets to live from the sea.
UNCLOS is our starting point. Often called the constitution of the oceans, it is not merely about dividing maritime space. It also imposes obligations concerning conservation, sustainable use and protection of the marine environment.
There is a simple reason: Fish don’t read maps.
Neither do currents, larvae or pollution. Ecological damage does not stop at a line on a chart.
For the Philippines and Vietnam, this makes cooperation both possible and necessary. Our countries may have different positions on particular maritime features and claims, but we can still cooperate on fisheries, marine science, environmental protection, search and rescue, and incident prevention—without prejudice to sovereignty or sovereign rights.
The 2016 South China Sea Arbitration offers an important lesson.
The Tribunal did not decide sovereignty over land territory or delimit a maritime boundary. Those limits matter. But it recognized Scarborough Shoal as a traditional fishing ground for fishermen of several nationalities, including Filipinos, Chinese and Vietnamese.
Traditional fishing is therefore more than commerce. It represents a community’s longstanding relationship with the sea.
The Award also found China responsible for breaches of UNCLOS obligations concerning protection of the marine environment, including endangered species and fragile ecosystems affected by destructive harvesting.
For environmental lawyers, the implication is clear: The reef can become evidence.
Declining catches can be measured. Traditional fishing patterns reconstructed. Satellite images can establish physical changes. Vessel tracking can show movements. Underwater surveys, photographs and videos can corroborate testimony.
Science is not an accessory to environmental litigation. It is evidence.
The Philippines already has substantial legal tools. The Constitution recognizes the right to a balanced and healthful ecology and requires protection of the nation’s marine wealth. The Fisheries Code, as amended, provides a framework for conservation, management and enforcement, including against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
Vietnam likewise has its 2017 Law on Fisheries and 2020 Law on Environmental Protection, including provisions on resource restoration and community participation.
Different legal systems, but considerable common ground: conservation, sustainable use, environmental protection, fisheries management and community interests.
As in several other concerns, the bigger problem is not always the absence of law. It is the distance between rights on paper and protection on water.
A fisherman may have a recognized livelihood interest and still be powerless before a larger foreign vessel.
A government can file a diplomatic protest. But a diplomatic protest does not repair a damaged boat, heal an injured fisherman or replace lost income.
For the fishermen, legal classifications can also seem painfully academic.
A water cannon hurts regardless of the vessel carrying it. A confiscated net is still a confiscated livelihood. A blocked fishing ground still means an empty boat.
The law must therefore examine conduct and consequences, not merely the label attached to the vessel.
The vulnerability is shared.
In September 2024, Vietnamese fishermen near the Paracel Islands were reportedly assaulted by Chinese law-enforcement personnel. Ten fishermen were reportedly involved; all were injured, three reportedly suffering broken limbs. Their equipment was reportedly damaged or seized, and about four tons of fish were reportedly taken.
Vietnam protested. The Philippines also condemned the reported assault.
In December 2025, Filipino fishermen near Escoda or Sabina Shoal reportedly faced water cannons and dangerous maneuvers by Chinese Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels. About 20 fishing boats were reportedly involved; three fishermen were reportedly injured, two vessels damaged and anchor lines cut.
The incidents should not be treated as legally identical. Each must be independently established and assessed. But the human reality is difficult to miss.
The Vietnamese fisherman near the Paracels and the Filipino fisherman in the West Philippine Sea may face different legal circumstances. Yet both can become civilians caught between competing assertions of maritime power.
This is where Philippine-Vietnamese cooperation can become meaningful.
The two countries have established mechanisms for maritime incident prevention and management and coast guard cooperation, including a hotline. Their coast guards have conducted joint exercises, including search-and-rescue activities.
In June 2026, the two governments reaffirmed cooperation and agreed to explore further collaboration in marine scientific research and environmental protection.
Good. But cooperation must reach the fishing boat.
A coast guard hotline is useful. But fishermen also need a lawyer’s telephone number.
When a boat is damaged, someone must know how to document it. When a fisherman is injured or detained, someone must know what remedies are available. When a reef is destroyed, someone must know how to preserve the evidence.
Filipino and Vietnamese lawyers can build networks for rapid legal assistance, incident documentation, evidence preservation, legal monitoring and, where appropriate, strategic litigation. Depending on the facts, lawyers may have to consider fisheries proceedings, criminal or civil actions, international mechanisms, diplomatic channels or public-interest litigation.
The point is not to litigate everything. It is to find the legal avenue that can actually deliver a remedy.
Because the fisherman does not need a beautifully written pleading that ends with no protection. He needs his boat repaired, his injury addressed, his livelihood protected—and his fishing ground preserved.
This should also change how we teach maritime law. Law students can memorize UNCLOS provisions and study cases and doctrines. They should. But the sea is not a textbook.
It has currents, reefs, weather, fishing gear, engines, navigation and communities waiting on shore. A future maritime lawyer should know what UNCLOS Article 192 says.
But that lawyer should also understand what a destroyed coral reef means to a fishing family.
There is a difference between knowing the law and knowing what the law is for.
The South China Sea will remain contested. Sovereignty will remain important. The maps will remain. But the sea is more than a boundary.
It is a living ecosystem. A workplace. A source of food. A community’s inheritance.
The Philippines and Vietnam do not have to settle every sovereignty question before protecting fishermen. We do not need identical legal systems before sharing scientific information or assisting vulnerable coastal communities.
We can cooperate where cooperation is possible. Start with fisheries science.
Environmental monitoring. Search and rescue. Evidence preservation. Incident prevention. Community legal assistance.
The larger political questions can wait. The fisherman cannot.
Somewhere along the Philippine coast, before sunrise, a fisherman will push his boat into the water. Somewhere along the Vietnamese coast, another will do the same.
Neither will be thinking about maritime doctrines.
They will be thinking about the weather, the fuel, the nets, the catch—and the family waiting for them to return.
That is where the law must arrive.
Not merely on the map. Not merely in the diplomatic note. Not merely in the courtroom.
At the fishing boat. Because there is little comfort in winning a legal argument over the sea if the fisherman can no longer safely sail it.
And what is the point of defending the boundary if the sea within it is dying?
The law of the sea should ultimately be measured not only by where the line is drawn, but by whether the fisherman can cross that water safely—and whether, when his children take his place, there will still be a living sea beneath their boat. (davaotoday.com)
