‘PHL-China oil deal vital to energy plan’

By BusinessMirror - November 26, 2018 By Butch Fernandez & Bernadette D. Nicolas
https://businessmirror.com.ph/phl-china-oil-deal-vital-to-energy-plan/

AMID fears the oil deal signed between the Philippines and China would be disadvantageous to the former, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto on Sunday said it is, in fact, “off to good start” given the “positive reviews” given by two eminent persons on the memorandum of understanding crafted by Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr.

Recto cited the joint statement made by Acting Chief Justice Antonio T. Carpio and former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert F. del Rosario, that Philippine interests are “safe” and that “nothing is being given away” by the Philippines in its oil exploration agreement with China.

Carpio and del Rosario have been among the most consistent critics of China’s aggressive stance in the South China Sea, but have also acknowledged there is wisdom in engaging China in a possible joint exploration of oil and gas resources, for as long as this is constitutionally compliant.

“This seal of a good agreement from two eminent experts bodes well for the eventual forging of a constitutionally compliant venture that is economically beneficial to us,” Recto said in a statement on Sunday.

“Because the memorandum that was signed respected our sovereignty, then the joint venture started off on the right foot, and not with the foot of one party pressed on the back of the other. It showed the way forward,” Recto added.
Energy challenge

At the same time, Recto underscored the importance of the MOU that was signed by Locsin and China’s Foreign Secretary Wang Yi during Tuesday’s visit to Manila of President Xi Jinping.

“There is an urgency in our search for energy independence. The Malampaya field off Palawan could run out of natural gas by 2024. This specter of energy starvation is what should drive the renewed hunt for new gas and oil fields within our seas,” noted Recto.

Malampaya supplies 40 percent to 50 percent of the energy needs of Luzon, “the world’s fourth most populous island where 58 million live,” the senator added.

“Malampaya fuels five baseload plants in Batangas with a capacity of 3,211 megawatts. If the plants’ fuel source go dry, then substitutes will have to be imported, until we hopefully strike gas in a territory believed to contain large deposits of it,” said Recto.

“The West Philippine Sea is our fuel and fish depot. It is our principal source of protein and power. However, we cannot deny the cruel reality that our country is facing a huge barrier, or a great wall, in accessing these,” the senator added.

He said the step taken by the Duterte administration—of having an MOU signed at least as a clear framework for any energy cooperation agreement in the near future—is a right move. Contrary to insinuations that the MOU signed in the presence of Xi and Duterte was a Chinese-initiated draft, DFA’s Locsin said on Thursday it was he who had drafted it, and it was accepted by the Chinese side.

Locsin, a former legislator and journalist-lawyer with a master of laws from Harvard, said the MOU laid down clear limits on parties—the Philippine constitution, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and is without prejudice to Manila’s asserting whatever legal rights may ensure from its 2016 victory in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague.

Recto summed up the pragmatic balancing act of Manila thus: “It is not easy to walk on this tightrope, of cooperating with another nation and contesting some of its actions at the same time. We are caught between a dark future and a powerful force.”
Joma: Reject MOU

Meanwhile, from self-exile in the Nether-lands, Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison advanced a different view. He said the Philippines must reject immediately the signed agreement on cooperation on oil and gas development in the West Philippine Sea with China before it causes further damage to the country’s sovereignty.

Sison said that even though what was signed was just an “agreement to agree”, it does not take away the fact that damage has already been done by the Duterte administration to the sovereign rights and national patrimony of the Filipino people.

The communist leader said it is clear from the signed MOU on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between the Philippines and China that the Philippines “keeps silent, ignores and sets aside” the arbitral ruling that handed down the country’s victory in the West Philippine Sea.

“In principle and in practical terms, the memorandum at least puts China at par with the Philippines, despite the fact that the Philippines has indisputably, according to international law and final court judgment, the sovereign rights and sole ownership of and authority over the oil, gas and other resources in any possible “relevant area” or “working area” in the West Philippine Sea,” he said in a Facebook post late Saturday.

“By citing the memorandum, China can now insist ad nauseam and by force that the Philippine government has waste-basketed the final judgment that the mineral and marine resources under the West Philippine Sea belong to the Philippines,” he added.

Moreover, Sison warned that inaction from the Filipino people may lead the President to commit more of what he called treasonous acts.

“To overcome the damage and counter the act of treason, the Philippines and the Filipino people must act immediately to nullify and waste basket the memorandum. Otherwise the traitor Duterte and his subalterns
will commit more crimes of treason under the rule of confidentiality agreed upon in the memorandum.”

To counter the “damage”, Sison said the Philippines should promptly muster its own patriotic Filipino experts and to hire the needed foreign oil and gas development company, that accepts Philippine sovereign rights and ownership over the resources.

This company should also be superior to China in undersea oil and gas exploration and development, and carries the protection of its country and the international community of nations, Sison said. It must also be independent of US and China.

Sison also warned that what was agreed upon in the memorandum may be intertwined with the legal and political provisions in contracts that require economic and trade and loan agreements to be governed by and construed in accordance with Chinese laws.

Any dispute with the Philippines on the terms of the contract will also have to be settled through the arbitration of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission. “These provisions overrule any Philippine silence or equivocation about Philippine sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea,” he said.

Under the MOU signed last week, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., each working group will look into a possible exploration deal between the Philippines and China. Each group shall consist of representatives from enterprises authorized by two governments.

The China National Offshore Oil Corp. and the Philippine National Oil Co. will also be involved.

The two governments are hoping to have cooperation arrangements within 12 months of the memorandum of agreements.

“All discussions, negotiations and activities of the two governments, or the authorized enterprises under or pursuant to this memorandum of understanding, will be without prejudice to the respective legal positions of both governments,” Locsin said, quoting the MOU, during his interview with CNN Philippines’s The Source.

Also, the MOU says “ it “does not create rights or obligations under international or domestic law.”