Joint exploration with China, boon or bane?

I am writing this piece while stranded in a quiet dining place, the one with vintage oakwood beer barrels, savoury tapas and crunchy chopitos. 

It’s a good place to kill time. After all, I have been driving for hours in monstrous Xi Jinping-induced traffic. Dead tired, I decided to just stop for a while. 

Makati’s streets were paralyzed and EDSA was a giant parking lot. NAIA terminals were shut down and travellers missed their flights because the flow of traffic going to and from the airport was temporarily held up when President Xi arrived.

On social media, many complained of the lack of warnings and late advisories on the traffic and the rerouting. 

Hush-hush

But it’s not just the traffic. Overall, the State Visit of President Xi Jinping to the Philippines seems to have been characterized by so much hush-hush. 

Even the actual day of his visit and his itinerary were not revealed early enough to the press.

The most controversial activity kept secret is the signing of  the memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a joint exploration agreement with China. 

Weeks before his arrival, sources said a deal could be signed in time for President Xi’s visit, but Cabinet secretaries could not give a definitive answer. 

No less than the Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi denied it. 

“No exploration deal that I know of,” Cusi said.

But how could the energy secretary not know about it? It’s obvious there was a lot of effort to conceal something as significant as this.

Either Cusi is such a good liar or he was out of the loop, big time.

Joint exploration

This now is what makes it such a curious case.  Why is it shrouded in so much secrecy if, as the colorful presidential spokesperson Sal Panelo said, there’s nothing wrong with it? 

The government trumpets how the country is reaping the benefits of our pivot to China, and yet it cannot even disclose the details of the joint exploration deal that is supposedly beneficial to us. 

I wonder too, why we would allow China to draft the agreement?

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV released a copy of the draft that supposedly came from China. 

Why didn’t the government release it? 

Everything is below the radar. It really is a curious case. 

In the draft, even the composition of the working group — among the most basic information that should have been there — is not clear. 

“The Working Group consist of representatives from enterprises of the two parties. China authorizes China National Offshore Oil Corp. as Chinese enterprise. The Philippines authorizes (blank) as Philippine enterprise,” the draft states. 

The provision on outcome sharing is also vague. “The joint exploration shall be conducted by the two parties and the outcome shall be only shared by the two parties.”

What kind of sharing? Will we get a 60-40 arrangement? It’s not clear.

I am not against joint exploration, controversial as it sounds. Having covered the energy beat for years, I’ve always believed it makes sense to finally jumpstart the exploration because it takes so much time to find new sources of energy. 

Time is something that is not on our side. Gas from the Malampaya facility in offshore Palawan is thinning out. 

But as I said before, the Duterte administration must make sure that no sovereignty would be surrendered in the proposed agreement.

It has to be even better than the Malampaya agreement. The joint development must comply with the Constitution and there is no waiver of our sovereign rights under the arbitral ruling, which invalidated Beijing’s claim to most of the South China Sea. 

It’s clear that both countries need fuel and both know that there’s a hefty amount of oil and gas in the disputed areas.

According to the US Energy Information Agency, there is an estimated 11 billion barrels’ worth of oil under the whole West Philippine Sea. There is also said to be 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. 

The Philippines needs steady sources of oil. In 2017, the country consumed approximately 455 thousand barrels of oil a day. 

Sovereignty

The solution should not come at the expense of our sovereignty. 

Article XII, Section 2 of the Constitution states that: “The exploration, development, and utilization of natural resources shall be under the full control and supervision of the State. The State may directly undertake such activities, or it may enter into co-production, joint venture, or production-sharing agreements with Filipino citizens, or corporations or associations at least 60 per centum of whose capital is owned by such citizens.”

But President Duterte’s recent comments in Singapore weren’t exactly comforting. 

”You are there, you are in possession, you occupy it, tell us what route shall we take and what kind of behavior,” he said, referring to China.

I once asked former foreign affairs secretary Alan Peter Cayetano how the Duterte administration would like to be judged by history in its handling of our dispute with China.

He reminded me of Duterte’s foreign policy, “we are a friend to all and enemy to none.” 

Will that policy allow this country to strive for a deal that will give paramount value to the will of the Filipino people? Only time will tell.

Iris Gonzales’ e-mail address is [email protected]