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The Kalayaan, Panatag & other disputed islands; Future conflict zones?
Topic Started: Feb 2 2005, 08:00 PM (156,115 Views)
israeli
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RP territory ceded for Chinese loans
GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc
The Philippine Star
Monday, March 3, 2008


RP was deep in yearlong talks with US telecom firm Arescom for a national broadband network when ZTE of China came along in 2006. In a flash RP dumped the first bidder and by Apr. 2007 signed a $330-million deal with the latecomer. If Filipinos find strange that twist of trade, all the more so with their government’s sudden switch of foreign loyalty from the US to China.

The year was 2002. With US backing, the Philippines had rallied the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to deal as one bloc with the rising China threat. Specifically RP wanted to push China out of the Spratlys, the dozens of isles in the South China Sea over which it and four ASEAN allies hold overlapping claims. Skirmishes had been erupting too often among China, Vietnam and the Philippines that the region was being watched as a major flashpoint. So RP prodded ASEAN and China to sign a “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea,” with the aim of stopping China’s growing military presence. Filipino officials then crowed about a job well done standing up to a giant.

Two years later saw an abrupt change. RP broke ranks from ASEAN and opted to deal with China on its own. It just came in a rush. As reported by Barry Wain in the Far Eastern Economic Review (Jan.-Feb. 2008): “President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s hurried trip to China in late 2004 produced a major surprise. Among the raft of agreements ceremoniously signed by the two countries was one providing for their national oil companies to conduct a joint seismic study in the contentious South China Sea, a prospect that caused consternation in parts of Southeast Asia.”

There’s more, said Wain: “The Philippines also made breathtaking concessions in agreeing to the area for study, including parts of its own continental shelf not even claimed by China. Through its actions, Manila has given a certain legitimacy to China’s legally spurious ‘historic claim’ to most of the South China Sea.”

“Continental shelf” is land beneath water from the coast to the point where it begins to slope down to the ocean floor. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the shelf is part of the territory of an island-nation, much more an archipelago. By implication, RP in signing a separate pact with China not only turned its back on long-time ASEAN and US allies, but also virtually ceded its territory to Chinese exploration.

For years China and RP kept the details of the exploration agreement secret, but details have leaked into research circles of late. Wrote Wain: “The designated zone, a vast swathe of ocean off Palawan in the Southern Philippines, thrusts into the Spratlys and abuts Malampaya, a Philippine producing gas field. One-sixth of the entire area, closest to the Philippine coastline, is outside the claims by China.”

It should be stressed that China’s notion of joint exploration pertains only to areas clearly not its. The segment of the Spratlys covered by the pact with Manila engulfs only the seven islands RP occupies. Attempting to strike a similar pact with Hanoi, China tried to include islands close to Vietnam’s coast inhabited by Vietnamese for centuries, but not the Paracels over which they have conflicting claims.

So why would RP be so queer as to allow virtual foreign incursions not only on its occupied (though disputed) islands but also on its territorial shelf?

“Some would say it was a sellout on the part of the Philippines,” Wain quoted South China Sea expert Mark Valencia. “Probably for higher political purposes, the Philippines agreed to these joint surveys that include parts of its legal continental shelf that China and Vietnam don’t even claim.” Wain also noted that RP is militarily weak and lagging economically.

There might be a hint of the real reason there. For, soon after RP capitulated, China offered to lend $2 billion a year till 2010 for government projects. China wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of its heart, though. It was bursting at the seams with $2 trillion in reserves, and was to collect 4-percent interest, hardly concessional in a period of much lower rates. China was only too willing to look like it was accommodating a new ally.

Why up to 2010 is also a hint. Thence came Northrail, Southrail, the NBN-ZTE deal, and a dozen other China-funded projects since 2005. In 2007 alone, RP signed 33 new projects for financing by China Export-Import Bank. And the list is still growing.

In his Senate testimony, whistleblower Jun Lozada swore that 20 percent was the minimum kickback of government officials from these projects. In effect, RP politicians and bureaucrats had from 2005 to 2010 to make at least $400 million a year from $2-billion releases from China.

The Filipino people would pay the loans for decades, of course, while the kickbackers make instant multimillions. In the meantime, China may use joint exploration as a cover for poaching in Philippine waters. All this, courtesy of officials who will sit till 2010.

Who was it who said that behind every great wealth is a great crime? Treason and plunder ride tandem.
"To secure peace is to prepare for war." - Carl Von Clausewitz
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Manila’s Bungle in The South China Sea
by Barry Wain
Far Eastern Economic Review
January/February 2008


When Vietnamese students gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi last December to protest against China’s perceived bullying over disputed territory in the South China Sea, it signaled Hanoi’s intention to turn up the heat a bit.

And Beijing reacted in kind; instead of downplaying the incident, a foreign ministry spokesman complained, “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands.” The bluster on both sides, while just a blip in this long-running feud, is a timely reminder that the South China Sea remains one of the region’s flashpoints. What most observers don’t realize is that in the last few years, regional cooperative efforts to coax Beijing into a more measured stance have been set back by one of the rival claimants to the islands.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s hurried trip to China in late 2004 produced a major surprise. Among the raft of agreements ceremoniously signed by the two countries was one providing for their national oil companies to conduct a joint seismic study in the contentious South China Sea, a prospect that caused consternation in parts of Southeast Asia. Within six months, however, Vietnam, the harshest critic, dropped its objections and joined the venture, which went ahead on a tripartite basis and shrouded in secrecy.

In the absence of any progress towards solving complex territorial and jurisdictional disputes in the South China Sea, the concept of joint development is resonating stronger than ever. The idea is fairly simple: Shelve sovereignty claims temporarily and establish joint development zones to share the ocean’s fish, hydrocarbon and other resources. The agreement between China, the Philippines and Vietnam, three of the six governments that have conflicting claims, is seen as a step in the right direction and a possible model for the future.

But as details of the undertaking emerge, it is beginning to look like anything but the way to go. For a start, the Philippine government has broken ranks with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which was dealing with China as a bloc on the South China Sea issue. The Philippines also has made breathtaking concessions in agreeing to the area for study, including parts of its own continental shelf not even claimed by China and Vietnam. Through its actions, Manila has given a certain legitimacy to China’s legally spurious “historic claim” to most of the South China Sea.

Although the South China Sea has been relatively peaceful for the past decade, it remains one of East Asia’s potential flashpoints. The Paracel Islands in the northwest are claimed by China and Vietnam, while the Spratly Islands in the south are claimed in part or entirety by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. All but Brunei, whose claim is limited to an exclusive economic zone and a continental shelf that overlap those of its neighbors, man military garrisons in the scattered islets, cays and rocks of the Spratlys.

After extensive Chinese structures were discovered in 1995 on Mischief Reef, on the Philippine continental shelf and well within the Philippine 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, Asean persuaded Beijing to drop its resistance to the “internationalization” of the South China Sea issue. Instead of insisting on only bilateral discussions with claimant states, China agreed to deal with Asean as a group on the matter. Rodolfo Severino, a former secretary-general of Asean, has lauded “Asean solidarity and cooperation in a matter of vital security concern.”

Asean and China, however, failed in their attempt to negotiate a code of conduct. In the “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea,” signed in 2002, they pledged to settle territorial disagreements peacefully and to exercise restraint in activities that could spark conflict. But the declaration is far from watertight. A political statement, not a legally binding treaty, it doesn’t specify the geographical scope and is, at best, an interim step.

Since the issuance of the declaration, a tenuous stability has descended on the South China Sea. With Asean countries benefiting from China’s booming economy, boosted by a free-trade agreement, Southeast Asian political leaders are happy to forget about this particular set of problems that once bedeviled their relations with Beijing. Yet none of the multifaceted disputes has been resolved, and no mechanism exists to prevent or manage conflicts. With no plans to discuss even the sovereignty of contested islands, claimants now accept that it will be decades, perhaps generations, before the tangled claims are reconciled.

Recent incidents and skirmishes are a sharp reminder of how dangerous the situation remains. In the middle of last year, Chinese naval vessels fired on Vietnamese fishing boats near the Paracels, killing one fisherman and wounding six others, while British giant BP halted work associated with a gas pipeline off the Vietnamese coast after a warning by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. In the past few months, Beijing and Hanoi have traded denunciations as the Chinese, in particular, maneuver to reinforce territorial claims. Vietnam protested when China conducted a large naval exercise around the Paracels in November.

China’s decision in December to create an administrative center on Hainan to manage the Paracels, Spratlys and another archipelago, though symbolic, was regarded as particularly provocative by Hanoi. The Vietnamese authorities facilitated demonstrations outside the Chinese diplomatic missions in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to make known their displeasure.

Friction can be expected to increase as the demand for energy by China and dynamic Southeast Asian economies rises and they intensify the search for oil and gas. While hydrocarbon reserves in the South China Sea are unproven, the belief that huge deposits exist keeps interest intense. As world oil prices hit record levels, the discovery of commercially viable reserves would raise tensions and “transform security circumstances” in the Spratlys, according to Ralf Emmers, an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

President Arroyo’s agreement with China for a joint seismic study was controversial in several respects. By not consulting other Asean members beforehand, the Philippines abandoned the collective stance that was key to the group’s success with China over the South China Sea. Ironically, it was Manila that first sought a united front and rallied Asean to confront China over its intrusion into Mischief Reef a decade earlier. Sold the idea by politicians with business links who have other deals going with the Chinese, Ms. Arroyo did not seek the views of her foreign ministry, Philippines officials say. By the time the foreign ministry heard about it and objected, it was too late, the officials say.

Philippine diplomats might have been able to warn her that while joint development has been successfully implemented elsewhere, Beijing’s understanding of the concept is peculiarly Chinese. The only location that China is known to have nominated for joint development is a patch off the southern coast of Vietnam called Vanguard Bank, which is in Vietnamese waters where China has “no possibly valid claim,” as a study by a U.S. law firm put it. Beijing’s suggestion in the 1990s that it and Hanoi jointly develop Vanguard Bank was considered doubly outrageous because China insisted that it alone must retain sovereignty of the area. Also of no small consideration was the fact that such a bilateral deal would split Southeast Asia.

The hollowness of China’s policy of joint development, loudly proclaimed for nearly 20 years, was confirmed long ago by Hasjim Djalal, Indonesia’s foremost authority on maritime affairs, when he headed a series of workshops on the South China Sea. Mr. Hasjim set out to test the concept of joint development, taking several years to identify an area in which each country would both relinquish and gain something in terms of its claims. In 1996, he designated an area of some thousands of square kilometers, amounting to a small opening in the middle of the South China Sea, which cut across the Spratlys and went beyond them. Joint development, unspecified, was to take place in the “hole,” with no participant having to formally abandon its claims. Beijing alone refused to further explore the doughnut proposal, as it was dubbed, complaining that the intended zone was in the area China claimed. Of course it was, that being the essence of the plan, without which it was difficult to imagine having joint development.

China’s bottom line on joint development at that time: What is mine is mine and what is yours is ours.

Beijing and Manila did not make public the text of their “Agreement for Seismic Undertaking for Certain Areas in the South China Sea By and Between China National Offshore Oil Corporation and Philippine National Oil Company.” After the agreement was signed on Sept. 1, 2004, the Philippine government said the joint seismic study, lasting three years, would “gather and process data on stratigraphy, tectonics and structural fabric of the subsurface of the area.”

Although the government said the undertaking “has no reference to petroleum exploration and production,” it was obvious that the survey was intended precisely to gauge prospects for oil and gas exploration and production. Nobody could think of an alternative explanation for seismic work, especially in the wake of year-earlier press reports that CNOOC and PNOC had signed a letter of intent to begin the search for oil and gas.

Vietnam immediately voiced concern, declaring that the agreement, concluded without consultation, was not in keeping with the spirit of the 2002 Asean-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties. Hanoi “requested” Beijing and Manila disclose what they had agreed and called on other Asean members to join Vietnam in “strictly implementing” the declaration. After what Hanoi National University law lecturer Nguyen Hong Thao calls “six months of Vietnamese active struggle, supported by other countries,” state-owned PetroVietnam joined the China-Philippine pact.

Vietnam’s inclusion in the modified and renamed “Tripartite Agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking in the Agreement Area in the South China Sea,” signed on March 14, 2005, was scarcely a victory for consensus-building and voluntary restraint. The Philippines, militarily weak and lagging economically, had opted for Chinese favors at the expense of Asean political solidarity. In danger of being cut out, the Vietnamese joined, “seeking to make the best out of an unsatisfactory situation,” as Mr. Severino puts it. The transparency that Hanoi had demanded was still missing, with even the site of the proposed seismic study concealed.

Now that the location is known, the details having leaked into research circles, the reasons for wanting to keep it under wraps are apparent: “Some would say it was a sell-out on the part of the Philippines,” says Mark Valencia, an independent expert on the South China Sea. The designated zone, a vast swathe of ocean off Palawan in the southern Philippines, thrusts into the Spratlys and abuts Malampaya, a Philippine producing gas field. About one-sixth of the entire area, closest to the Philippine coastline, is outside the claims by China and Vietnam. Says Mr. Valencia: “Presumably for higher political purposes, the Philippines agreed to these joint surveys that include parts of its legal continental shelf that China and Vietnam don’t even claim.”

Worse, by agreeing to joint surveying, Manila implicitly considers the Chinese and Vietnamese claims to have a legitimate basis, he says. In the case of Beijing, this has serious implications, since the broken, U-shaped line on Chinese maps, claiming almost the entire South China Sea on “historic” grounds, is nonsensical in international law. (Theoretically, Beijing might stake an alternative claim based on an exclusive economic zone and continental shelf from nearby islets that it claims, but they would be restricted by similar claims by rivals.) Manila’s support for the Chinese “historic claim,” however indirect, weakens the positions of fellow Asean members Malaysia and Brunei, whose claimed areas are partly within the Chinese U-shaped line. It is a stunning about-face by Manila, which kicked up an international fuss in 1995 when the Chinese moved onto the submerged Mischief Reef on the same underlying “historic claim” to the area.

Some commentators have hailed the tripartite seismic survey as a landmark event, echoing the upbeat interpretation put on it by the Philippines and China. The parties insist it is a strictly commercial venture by their national oil companies that does not change the sovereignty claims of the three countries involved. Ms. Arroyo calls it an “historic diplomatic breakthrough for peace and security in the region.” But that assessment is, at the very least, premature.

Not only do the details of the three-way agreement remain unknown, but almost nothing has been disclosed about progress on the seismic study, which should be completed in the next few months. Much will depend on the results and what the parties do next. Already, according to regional officials, China has approached Malaysia and Brunei separately, suggesting similar joint ventures. If it is confirmed that China has split Asean and the Southeast Asian claimants and won the right to jointly develop areas of the South China Sea it covets only by virtue of its “historic claim,” Beijing will have scored a significant victory.


Mr. Wain, writer-in-residence at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, is a former editor of The Wall Street Journal Asia.
"To secure peace is to prepare for war." - Carl Von Clausewitz
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City Hunter
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Its sickening nga. Maybe its another reason why those lost pilots aboard that missing S-211 can't be found yet.
Command is about authority, about appointment to a position. Effective leadership is different. It must be learned and practiced in order for it to rise to the level of art. You must love those you lead before you can be an effective leader. You can certainly command without that sense of commitment but you cannot lead without it; and without leadership, command is a hollow experience. .. a vacuum often filled with mistrust and ignorance.

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israeli
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City Hunter
Mar 5 2008, 10:39 PM
Its sickening nga. Maybe its another reason why those lost pilots aboard that missing S-211 can't be found yet.

it is really sad to say this, Sir City Hunter, but given the fact that ALL institutions in this country are already corrupted and that no one in government has some morality, decency, honesty and love of country left within themselves, it is so hard to trust any person in this country nowadays. the Philippines is getting more sickening as each second passes. :armyfrown:
"To secure peace is to prepare for war." - Carl Von Clausewitz
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The nation for whom so many brave heroes have laid their lives now being sold out by those who are supposed to guarantee our very sovereignty and freedom...
Sickening!
Overthrow these treacherous imbeciles!
"THE BEST PARENT AND GUARDIAN OF LIBERTY AMONGST MEN IS TRUTH" ~ Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei

“When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven’t got any.” - G. K. Chesterton

MSantor is not a man of sound reason. Savages have always preferred the club for they know that they are powerless against the pen. But who is the greater fool - the savage or the one that gives him power? May Truth rebuke you.
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We wish them meet the same fate to that of Judas Iscariote. (sorry for my spelling)

It would have been better and a consolation if they bargained our territory with money if in turn will be given to the poor and less fortunate Filipinos.

To overthrow them is not enough, maybe hanging would compensate.

I agree with you and others Mr. Marshall. :thumb:
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Arroyo hit on Spratlys deal

Drilon: Her lawyer worried pact basis to impeach


By Juliet Labog-Javellana, Abigail L. Ho
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:07:00 03/07/2008


MANILA, Philippines -- Former Senate President Franklin Drilon disclosed Thursday that Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s chief legal counsel, had said the deal might be in violation of the Constitution and could be grounds for her impeachment.

“I’m willing to state this under oath wherever they will call me,” Drilon told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

Drilon said Gutierrez sought his help regarding the planned agreement between the Philippines and China shortly before it was signed in September 2004.

“[She] approached me and asked for my help because, in her view, the agreement allowing China to explore our resources violated the Constitution,” Drilon said.

Last week, a highly placed source privy to the deal told the Inquirer that the Philippines gave up its natural resources when it signed the agreement allowing China to gather seismic data off Palawan province in an area mostly within Philippine territorial waters.

The source, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said the agreement might have been forged to provide a “political solution” to the long-standing struggle among six nations for ownership of the Spratly group of islands, which is said to be rich in gas and oil deposits, and which the Philippines is claiming in part.

But Barry Wain, in an article in the January-February 2008 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review, quoted Mark Valencia, an independent expert on the South China Sea, as saying: “Some would say it was a sellout on the part of the Philippines.”

The Inquirer repeatedly tried to reach Gutierrez by phone, to no avail.

According to Ana Sanchez of the Office of the Ombudsman, Gutierrez was in the United States for an official briefing with USAID and was due back on Monday.

The Senate and the House of Representatives are poised to conduct separate investigations into the Spratlys deal, which was purportedly forged in exchange for the controversial China-funded loans for the scuttled National Broadband Network (NBN) deal and the Cyber Education, NorthRail and SouthRail projects.


DFA objections

Drilon, then the Senate President, said he could not recall the exact date Gutierrez met with him to discuss her concerns, only that the meeting was held before the agreement was signed.

“She told me it could expose the President to impeachment,” Drilon said.

He quoted Gutierrez as saying that the Department of Foreign Affairs had expressed a similar objection to the agreement and that “she was under pressure from JDV” -- referring to then House Speaker Jose de Venecia -- to endorse it.

Drilon said De Venecia had admitted to pushing for the purportedly overpriced NorthRail project.

Now a private citizen, Drilon said he was supporting the planned congressional inquiries into the Spratlys deal.

“This appears to be the root cause of all the dirty loans, such as [those involving the] NorthRail and NBN,” he said.

He added that he was willing to testify on his conversation with Gutierrez before a congressional hearing.

Drilon said he had asked Gutierrez to furnish him a copy of the agreement so that he or the Senate could give her proper advice, but “she never came back.”

He said he did not know whether the agreement that was eventually signed contained the same provisions over which Gutierrez had expressed reservations.

Gutierrez served as the President’s chief legal counsel from August 2004 to November 2005, after which she was appointed Ombudsman.


Terms, not title

Drilon said the Senate was not informed of the deal.

He said the agreement was originally called an “exploration agreement.” The term apparently rang alarm bells, and so it was modified into a “free exploration agreement,” and, later, what is now known as the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) among China, the Philippines and Vietnam.

But he pointed out that it was the terms of the contract, and not the title, that would show whether the deal was unconstitutional.

Drilon said he shared Gutierrez’s view that allowing China or any other country to explore the Philippines’ territorial waters and resources was in violation of constitutional provisions governing the country’s national territory and patrimony.

But he said he did not believe that the agreement could make Ms Arroyo liable for treason, as some quarters had claimed.

“I haven’t explored the involvement of the President [in this deal], but definitely it’s not treason as defined in the Revised Penal Code,” he said.

Drilon said the deal could be a basis for impeaching Ms Arroyo, who has survived two impeachment complaints regarding allegations of cheating in the 2004 presidential election and corruption.

“That one is a possibility. If the agreement is a violation of the Constitution, it can be a basis [for impeachment],” he said.

Apart from the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei claim the Spratlys either in whole or in part.

Except for Brunei, all the claimants had set up military installations on the islands they claimed.


‘Weak state’

The JMSU involves Philippine National Oil Co.’s Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC), China National Offshore Oil Co. (CNOOC) and Vietnam Oil and Gas Corp. (PetroVietnam).

The source privy to the deal said the JMSU, although it includes Vietnam, could weaken the Philippines’ claim over the Spratlys because it was the Philippine government that first approached China.

“The Philippines seems to be the weakest link in the region, as far as the Spratly claims are concerned,” the source said. “It’s a weak state. It has inconsistent policies. No matter who’s the president, a weak state is always in danger of mismanaging its national interests.”

This was the source’s account of how the JMSU came to be:

In 2004, then PNOC-EC president Eduardo Mañalac and then Energy Secretary Vincent Perez met with Ms Arroyo to seek her approval for a bilateral agreement with CNOOC for data-gathering efforts over an area in the South China Sea, including the Spratlys.

Ms Arroyo gave her approval, paving the way for the signing of the Philippines-China deal that same year.

But Vietnam, which claims some of the islands included in the joint undertaking, vehemently objected to the agreement.

As a result, the JMSU was signed on March 14, 2005.


2nd phase

The three state oil firms are now in the second phase of the three-year agreement, which took effect in July 2005.

The JMSU covers 142,886 square kilometers in the South China Sea. (Barry Wain wrote: “The Philippines ... has made breathtaking concessions in agreeing to the area for study, including parts of its own continental shelf not even claimed by China and Vietnam.”)

It entails seismic acquisition, processing and interpretation, but does not include any form of actual exploration.

Depending on the results of the seismic data processing and interpretation, the three state oil firms may decide to negotiate other agreements beyond mere data-gathering.

Asked if the JMSU could be part of a bigger deal with China -- say a quid pro quo involving Chinese investments in Philippine projects in exchange for the advancement of China’s claim to the Spratlys -- the source said:

“It’s not clear. If there’s a quid pro quo, it’s more implied than expressed. China can promise to invest all that foreign exchange into the country, in exchange for moving its interests forward, like those in the South China Sea.

“The Chinese know their position. Their claims can’t be compromised. The Philippines, on the other hand, is flip-flopping on its policies. The problem is that its policies are not driven by technical people, but by opportunists and politicians.”


Safety net

The source said technical people in the Department of Energy and PNOC-EC had gone out of their way to set up a safety net.

“The DOE was very careful and very consistent, as far as protection of Philippine territory is concerned. It asked PNOC-EC to apply for a non-exclusive geophysical permit that had a limited validity,” the source said.

This would prevent any of the entities involved in the JMSU to lay exclusive claim to the covered area should any oil and gas resource be found there, the source said.

Nevertheless, the source admitted that the Philippines had reason to worry given China’s sheer size and military power.

“If oil or natural gas is actually found [in the area], how can you stop the neighborhood bully from wanting to get in?” the source said, adding:

“The approach should really have been to multilateralize it, instead of dealing with China on our own. We’ll have a stronger position if it’s multilateral. But that all changed when the bilateral deal was signed.

“There are really some people who are willing to sell out,” the source said.
"To secure peace is to prepare for war." - Carl Von Clausewitz
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When China sought for exploration agreement within the Spratleys from the Philippines, it is an implied admission that they have no territorial rights over the island, that should have reinforced the gesture of refusal to the exploration instead of signing an agreement which is synonymous to sell out.

This is an unforgivable blunder that can only happen to a hopeless administration.
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Mar 7 2008, 05:38 AM
When China sought for exploration agreement within the Spratleys from the Philippines, it is an implied admission that they have no territorial rights over the island, that will reinforce the gesture of our refusal of the exploration instead of signing an agreement which is synonymous to sell out.

This is an unforgivable blunder that can only happen to a hopeless administration.

The best thing for us to do is to lobby Conservatives to rally behind us in case the Chinese invade the Spratlys islands. That is the best solution. Don't vote for Hillary or Barack or else they'll leave us unattended until the Chinese invades us and establish a defacto government with an ex-defense secretary as President. That is the most simple solution.
"Provocation is a valid defense against homicide"- Canadian Law on MSantor who 'cough, cough..', passes by my company room with a cup of coffee, waits for me in the bus shelter together with his friends and provoke me, and has been stalking me in forums like army.ca, navy.ca, timawa.net, militaryforums.com... He indeed is 'SEEKING DEATH' - Holy Bible.
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will they even tell the truth about it? :armyroleyes:


De Venecia denies Spratly pact tied to loans from China
By Norman Bordadora
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:56:00 03/07/2008


MANILA, Philippines -- Pangasinan Representative Jose de Venecia has repeatedly denied that the exploration agreement he helped pursue with China was tied to the release of Chinese loans to the Philippines.

“No, zero,” said the ousted Speaker of the House, reiterating a statement he had earlier issued that said the agreement had turned “an area of potential conflict into a zone of peace and development.”

His spokesperson, Noel Albano, also said late last month that the agreement was “not tied to anything, not to any loan.”

“We are not giving up any territory here,” Albano quoted De Venecia as saying. “What we have is a dignified settlement and an honorable peace -- an agreement for a joint seismic exploration to determine if there are drillable resources in the area.”

After his official visit to Beijing in January, De Venecia said the tripartite venture in the disputed zone should be “expedited and completed” to pave the way for exploratory oil drilling by the national oil companies of the Philippines, China and Vietnam.

“With the price of crude hitting the roof, we should have oil in our front yard and back yard,” De Venecia said in a statement issued after his meeting with Wu Bangguo, chair of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People.

De Venecia said China, the Philippines and Vietnam had reached a “meaningful seismic agreement” enabling their respective national oil companies to explore jointly for hydrocarbon resources in the contested area.

Albano said the arrangement was like the oil exploration being conducted by several European nations -- among them England, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany -- in the North Sea without any partition.


-----------


Romulo: Spratly tripartite agreement a plus, not a sellout
By Cynthia Balana
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 07:33:00 03/07/2008


MANILA, Philippines -- The Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) is a positive endeavor for all the claimants to the Spratly Islands, and not a sellout of Philippine sovereignty, according to Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo.

“As it indicates, it is a marine seismic undertaking that will go on until 2009, and it is going very well,” Romulo said in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer during the Feb. 25 anniversary celebration of the 1986 revolt at the People Power Revolution Monument on EDSA (Epifanio delos Santos Avenue), Quezon City.

“I think the efforts look good. That’s why [we should] wait until we have the final report on the JMSU,” he said.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who was present at the EDSA I anniversary celebration, said the JMSU had enabled the Philippines, China and Vietnam to focus, not on their conflict over the Spratlys, but on joint studies of marine resources.

Ermita said all the claimant-countries were expected to benefit from the success of the tripartite undertaking.

“The important thing is we must be able to maintain harmony among nations, so that we’ll not talk about confrontation,” he said.

Romulo denied that the agreement was undertaken to favor China in exchange for loans and investments in the Philippines.

“The purpose of that -- as we had agreed with then Chairman Deng Xiaoping when he was meeting with then Vice President and Foreign Secretary Salvador Laurel -- is that we should convert the Spratlys, the South China Sea, from an area of conflict to a zone of peace and development,” he said.

Romulo said the JSMU was already in place when he became foreign secretary. (He was named to the post on Aug. 23, 2004.)

He said that on his first official visit to China, its foreign minister recalled to him the agreement between Deng and Laurel.


-----------


Palace nixes opposition claim on Spratlys
By Joel Guinto
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 10:57:00 03/07/2008


MANILA, Philippines -- The political opposition is resorting to "press statements and partisan hearings" because they are afraid of "impartial" proceedings.

This was Malacañang's reaction to reports that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo could have violated the Constitution when she entered into a tripartite agreement with China and Vietnam for joint exploration in the disputed Spratly Islands.

"Why does the opposition keep on resorting to press statements and partisan hearings? Is it afraid of impartial process?" Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo said in a statement.

A report on the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoting former Senate president Franklin Drilon as saying that sometime in 2004, then presidential chief legal counsel Merceditas Gutierrez sought his advice on the constitutionality of the agreement with China and Vietnam.

Senators Antonio Trillanes IV, Panfilo Lacson, and Maria Ana Consuelo Madrigal and some members of the House of Representatives have sought an investigation into allegations of "sellout" and "treason," saying the country could have weakened its claim on the Spratlys in exchange for a billion-dollar loan package from China.

The loans reportedly included the allegedly graft-tainted $329-million ZTE Corp. contract for the botched national broadband network (NBN) project.

Taking a swipe at Drilon, Saludo said: "Topnotch lawyers like former justice secretary Franklin Drilon know how to test the validity of any agreement, not by citing hearsay, but by raising the matter in the Supreme Court."

Drilon, who served as justice secretary under the Aquino administration, has expressed willingness to testify on legislative inquiries into the Spratlys agreement.
"To secure peace is to prepare for war." - Carl Von Clausewitz
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