CALLS mounted on Wednesday for the Executive to reveal the full text of a cooperation agreement on oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea, signed on the first day of President Xi Jinping’s historic state visit.
However, not everyone was filled with anxiety amid calls for transparency. A local petroleum firm in earlier talks with a state-owned Chinese company said it may augur well for efforts to develop new sources of energy for the Philippines, which is launching the next round of the energy-contracting exploration program in hopes of luring downstream oil-industry players.
In a related development, the Supreme Court was asked to immediately resolve a 10-year-old petition to strike down an earlier similar agreement, signed with China and Vietnam in 2004.
Although the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) entered into by the Arroyo
administration had already expired on June 30, 2008, the petitioners said in an urgent motion on Wednesday that there is still a need for the Court to resolve their petition in light of the Duterte administration’s plan to enter into a new exploration agreement covering certain areas of the South China Sea.
On Tuesday, hours after Xi’s arrival in Manila, he and President Duterte witnessed the forging of 29 bilateral agreements between Philippine and Chinese officials on a wide range of programs and projects, topped by the MOU that was described as a framework agreement on how to proceed when they get to the point of jointly exploring parts of the South China Sea, believed rich in oil and gas.
Before the exchanges on the 29 accords, the office of Sen. Antonio F. Trillanes IV had provide media a copy of a purported draft initiated by the “Chinese side” that was supposedly leaked in advance of the MOU signing. However, it was painted as a mere Chinese-initiated draft, and until press time Malacañang had declined to state if the text of the official MOU was anywhere near that version.
Trillanes’s allies in the Senate minority were among the first to demand transparency in whatever agreement the Executive might have made with Beijing on cooperation in exploring for oil and gas. Among those who weighed in on the issue were Sens. Franklin M. Drilon, Francis N. Panglinan and Leila M. de Lima. A statement was also issued by former congressman now senatorial aspirant Lorenzo Tañada III.
Talks interrupted
Meanwhile, businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan said on Wednesday the MOU signed between Beijing and Manila may yet be the clincher for resuming talks on a possible tie-up between local firm PXP Energy Corp. and the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) on a joint exploration in the Reed Bank, to the west of Palawan.
Pangilinan chairs PXP Energy, which holds a 78.98-percent interest in UK-based Forum Energy Plc. which, in turn, has a 70-percent stake in SC 72, an oil-and-gas-exploration permit covering the Sampaguita natural-gas prospect in the Reed Bank.
PXP and CNOOC used to discuss a possible joint exploration of SC 72 to develop a part of the Reed Bank. However, the Philippine government declared force majeure on the license in 2015, because its pending maritime row with China had reached international arbitration.
The Philippines won its case against China in 2016, with a UN tribunal invalidating China’s nine-dash-line claim that it uses to claim nearly 90 percent of the South China Sea.
Pangilinan had said earlier his company sent feelers to CNOOC to explore the possibility of returning to the negotiating table. “We’d like to renew our conversation with them in respect to SC 72,” Pangilinan said. “I suspect that will not happen until a bilateral has happened between the Philippine government and Chinese government.”
On Wednesday, reacting to Tuesday’s signing of the MOU on cooperation in oil and gas exploration, Pangilinan, who is also chairman of Manila Electric Co. said at Meralco’s MTech event, “The signing of [the] MOU with China is a small but significant step.”
Added Pangilinan, “I do hope that this could lead to some positive steps that we could take in respect of the work program we submitted to the previous administration.”
The Department of Energy, as of press time, has yet to provide details of the agreement.
Last month Pangilinan’s PXP Energy signed a deal with Dennis Uy’s holding firm Dennison Holdings Corp., allowing the former to acquire up to 49 percent in Phoenix Petroleum Philippines Corp.’s joint venture with CNOOC for LNG (liquefied natural gas) development in exchange for shares.
PXP Energy said it signed a subscription agreement with Dennison Holdings for 340 million shares priced at P11.85 per share.
Pangilinan said part of the reason his group wanted to partner with Uy was that, “it looks like Dennis has established connections with CNOOC.”
“With respect to the gas terminal and gas plants, we thought it might be good to bring Dennis, as well. If he knows CNOOC fairly well enough.”
Pangilinan also said that the proposed partnership with the Davao City-based businessman is a “logical step” to do given the latter’s “established connection” with the Chinese state power firm.
“We thought that, given that Dennis has signified an intention and desire to be part of PXP Energy in respect with SC 72, this would be a logical step for us to co-invest with him on the gas terminal and gas plant, but there is no commitment at this stage. It is basically an option for us to take 49 percent of what he might own eventually of the terminal or gas plant,” said Pangilinan.
JMSU petition
The anti-JMSU petition was filed in 2008 by then party-list representatives Neri Colmenares, Teddy Casiño, Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran, Liza Maza and Luzviminda Ilagan; along with then-Rep. Lorenzo Tañada III and former Sen. Teofisto Guingona III.
In particular, the petitioners sought the High Court’s issuance of directions as to how the case can be resolved speedily, to provide status updates on the case and for the immediate resolution of the petition by declaring the tripartite agreement unconstitutional.
“With all the years that have passed, with all the events that appear to make the Republic of the Philippines seemingly an adjunct of the People’s Republic of China, another joint exploration is set to be entered by the Duterte administration with China, it is high time for the Honorable Court to at least give directions and/or status updates and/or already immediately resolve the instant case now,” the urgent motion read.
“The substantive issues in the present case are now of overreaching and paramount importance to the Philippines and the Filipino people, especially in light of our current territorial and maritime disputes with China,” it added.
Not mooted
The petitioners added that the petition should be exempt from the application of the “moot and academic” principle for various reasons, such as the alleged grave violation of the Constitution; the paramount public interest involved; the fact that the constitutional issues raised in the petition would require the formulation of controlling principles to guide the Court and the public; and the possibility that the act being assailed will be repeated.
“In order to uphold the Constitution and conform to the assertion of the Republic of the Philippines of its sovereignty, territory, exclusive economic zone, continental shelf and maritime resources, among others, over both the undisputed and claimed areas in the West Philippine Sea covered by the agreement area, the Honorable Court must strike down as unconstitutional the Tripartite Agreement,” the petitioners added.
Under the JMSU, which expired in 2008, the Philippines, China and Vietnam, through their respective national oil corporations, agreed to conduct joint explorations of the disputed South China Sea. However, up to 80 percent of the JMSU site is within the Philippines’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone.
Vietnam is one of four Asean countries, including the Philippines, that have claims in the South China Sea, and in the past it had tangled with China. Manila took the international arbitration route, filing in 2013 the case with the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
Named respondents in the 2008 anti-JMSU petition were then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, her Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, her Foreign Affairs and Energy secretaries, as well as the Philippine National Oil Co. and the Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp.
“Any joint exploration with any foreign country or entity that allows almost absolute control over the benefits of the exploration to such foreign country or entity is detrimental to the Filipino people and therefore must not be allowed,” the petitioners said.
Image credits: AP Photo/Aaron Favila