By
Lenie Lectura - November 4, 2019
ENERGY Secretary
Alfonso Cusi wants the Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC)
Board to review all transactions after President Duterte sacked the
corporation’s president.
“I asked the members of
the board to review…to put proper direction. At least, hindi na katulad ng nangyari na
[it’s no longer a case of what happened before, when] things were hidden from
me, from the board. You know, why would you have the contract signed in the
presence of the President without being vetted,” said Cusi, who is also the
chairman of PNOC-EC.
PNOC-EC President and
Chief Executive Officer Pedro A. Aquino Jr. was asked by the President to
resign after the former signed a memorandum of agreement with a
Russian firm without approval of the board or its chairman.
“Remember that PNOC-EC
is a corporation. So, the president cannot just do things as if it’s
his own. I cannot do it either. I’m the chairman, I can’t do it. I just
facilitate,” said Cusi.
The supposed deal
involves, among others, petroleum supply to PNOC-EC. “It’s 110 percent of the
country’s demand, iyan ang
volume na pinag-uusapan
[that’s the volume covered by their transaction]. Imagine that,” said Cusi. “As
the President said, that’s an idiotic contract.”
However, since Aquino
resigned and the DOE never approved the deal, Cusi said “the contract never
existed and has no effect on the country.”
Also, Cusi said the
board is expected to craft a strategic plan. “The direction will be reviewed
and, of course, we’ll have some, strategic planning. These things have
happened, so what do we do? We need some strategic planning, so they have
to come up with that,” added Cusi in a mix of English and Filipino.
PNOC-EC, Cusi said,
remains an exploration company. Aquino’s replacement has yet to be
named. Lourdes Gelacio is currently the officer in charge president of
PNOC-EC.
Sen. Win: stick to mandate
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian
earlier commented that PNOC and its units should stick to their mandate.
“We could have
prevented this situation if we had a more focused PNOC. Unfortunately, the PNOC
is spreading itself too thin by doing different things when its focus should be
on oil and gas exploration,” said the lawmaker, who is also the Senate Energy committee
head.
For example, the
PNOC-EC is supposed to be tasked with exploration but has intended to go into
petroleum trading. The PNOC mother company also wants to go into liquefied
natural gas, while the PNOC Renewables Corp. is building solar rooftops.
“We plan to remedy this
situation by championing in this Congress a measure that will restructure PNOC
by abolishing its existing subsidiaries and directing its focus away from
non-exploration activities,” Gatchalian said. “The bottom line here is that we
will refocus the PNOC to purely upstream oil and gas so that it will contribute
in securing the country’s energy needs.”
The Senate Committee on
Finance is scheduled to hold a public hearing on PNOC’s 2020 budget on Monday
(November 4).
No comments:
Post a Comment