THE chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy shared an upbeat outlook for the country’s back-up power supply to avert widespread brownouts when major supplier Malampaya gas field dries up.
“We already have a contingency measure because construction of importation terminals are underway even if Malampaya is gone,” Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said, adding this means the private sector can start importing natural gas, until potential power sources in the West Philippine Sea are put on line.
Gatchalian assured the public that “in short, we won’t have brownouts,” while also driving home the importance of the West Philippine Sea. He noted that, “looking at its potential volume of oil and gas there, when it comes to oil, these will supply our economy for almost 17 years based on the Department of Energy [DOE] data.”
He added: “When it comes to gas, based on the data of DOE, it can supply us close to 600 years, that’s how big the potential [is] of West Philippine Sea,” the senator said, even as he hastened to clarify this will take some time. “Of course, the caveat is we are still exploring,” he said, adding: “pwedeng lumiit yan pero [that could be smaller but], for sure, based on initial potential, 17 years for oil and 600 years for gas, [that’s how big the] potential [is].”
Gatchalian confirmed that Lopez-led First Gen is already at work, with construction under way to put it on line “before the Malampaya gas field is depleted…[sometime] in 2024.”
So, he added, “in other words, we won’t have brownouts.” Still the country is losing something in terms of the potential “[because of the] suspension of exploration [there].”
He recalled that explorations were stopped earlier but the ban was eventually lifted by President Duterte in October 2020, affecting “11 potential service contracts in West Philippine Sea.”
However, the senator added, only six of the 11 service contracts have “no problems” as they are operating “well within our exclusive economic zone.”
The five others are within the Philippines’s EEZ also, but are overlapped by the nine-dash line, “and this is where we face issues,” he said, referring to China’s arbitrary and sweeping redraw of the South China Sea, on which it based its claim of nearly 90 percent of the area. The arbitral tribunal that heard Manila’s case against Beijing’s “excessive claims” in the SCS in 2016 declared the nine-dash line illegal and invalid.
So, Gatchalian said, even if these five others are within the Philippine EEZ, “China says they have jurisdiction because they’re within the nine-dash line.” And yet, per the Unclos, as declared by the arbitral award, “we have the right to explore there. We have the right to fish and to explore for oil and gas.”
Gatchalian suggests that those operating within the “nine-dash line” should just continue exploration since they are “within our exclusive economic zone.”
“According to Unclos [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea], all the natural resources there, we can explore and exploit. We can use it to boost our economy, So those who are operating within the nine-dash line, we have the right to continue to explore,” he added.
On recent contracts awarded by Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, Gatchalian agreed the government can continue awarding service contracts since these are within the EEZ. “They can still award. That area is big. Besides the 11, there are still others, so they can still award service contracts,” he said.
The senator asserted that the UN body was “very clear in its arbitral award.”
Gatchalian recalled that President Duterte stressed this point when he addressed virtually United Nations General Assembly last year. “He said that can never go away because that is now part of international law,” the senator said.