The planet’s oceans are vast, and an international effort to produce an accurate map of the ocean floor has been going on for over a century. In the effort to complete that map, the international community allows countries or organizations to conduct research on submarine features and to submit the results. In return, the researcher gets naming rights to the sea features.

As early as 2004, China has been conducting such explorations in the Philippine Sea including Benham or the Philippine Rise, in the Western Pacific where the Chinese have no maritime territorial claims. The results have been submitted by Beijing to the International Hydrographic Organization and UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, accompanied by suggested Chinese names for the sea features.

One application states that the research was conducted from July to September 2004 by the Chinese vessel Li Siguang Hao using a multi-beam sounding system. It’s unclear whether the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was aware of the foreign research activity in Philippine waters.

So far, China has proposed names for up to seven or eight submarine features in the Philippine Basin, including a ridge on the Philippine Rise – an area that is well within the country’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone. An expert claimed five names proposed by China have been approved by the IHO-IOC.

There could be more proposals coming up from Beijing, following the recent completion of research by one of its vessels in the area, conducted with the approval and support of the Philippine government.

The Duterte administration has stopped all foreign research activities in the Philippine Sea, and the government is reportedly protesting the grant of naming rights to China for sea features in Philippine waters.

Administration defenders ask: what’s in a name? The sea belongs to the Philippines. But try telling that to Beijing, which has created artificial islands with military fortifications in the South China Sea despite having its entire territorial claim in the area invalidated by a UN-backed court.

This naming controversy should offer precious lessons in protecting the country’s heritage. First, a nation must be capable of protecting its territory. Second, it must be capable of conducting its own research to produce the work required for naming rights to sea features within that territory. And third, the political leadership must have the will to achieve those two objectives, instead of recklessly giving away national patrimony.