Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- October 16, 2019 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Philippine
National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC) president and CEO Pedro Aquino was
asked to resign by President Duterte, a government official has confirmed.
Aquino himself said in a text
message that he was asked to resign.
The move reportedly stemmed from the
approval of a memorandum of agreement with a Russian firm for the development
of a multilateral cooperation in oil products and trading and joint
participation in oil refining without the permission from the PNOC-EC board or
from Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi.
Energy Undersecretary and spokesman
Felix William Fuentebella said the DOE would issue a statement soon.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said the
development highlights the need for a clear policy direction for the entire
PNOC family.
“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,” he pointed out.
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,” he added.
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