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Much of
the confusion over the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking
(JMSU) between China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC)
and Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) is due to
incompetents who do not know what they are talking
about, those who deliberately talk out of the sides of
their mouths and a milieu of righteous bloodlust.
It’s
about ineptitude, incredulity and an incendiary
atmosphere spawned from long-accumulated government
duplicity.
For one
incumbent, it could also be genetic disposition. Past is
prelude, and where memories are weak, despots prevail.
Harking to the 1968 Jabidah Massacre—our version of the
Bay of Pigs betrayal—baselines and expediencies mix. In
both, secrecy and lies govern. The failure to set
borders contributed to the loss of Sabah, as might our
failure now to check the limits of evil betrayal be the
death of us.
Under
normal circumstances, a JMSU is par for the course. When
strictly limited to the language of a survey in the
ordinary sense—as applied with development partners
uninterested in our territory—the undertaking is
politically anodyne. Especially one between two private
entities in the manner that Gloria Arroyo’s people would
have us believe, these are inert.
Previous
employment with Australians and Norwegians set the
precedent. When, as Justice secretary, former senator
Franklin Drilon opined on a previous JMSU’s legality,
such was the logic, albeit lost on one administration
sycophant.
To her
misfortune, it is Arroyo’s people who obfuscate JMSU
issues, amputating it of inherent inertness, thus
fueling funeral pyres. No wonder Dick Cheney’s think
tank labeled her “the weakest leader in the region” and
“an equal-opportunity weakling.”
Three
issues render the JMSU politically fatal. One is its
possible link to the broadband scandal. Of 67 bilateral
agreements signed with China, 57 came after August 2003
when negotiations opened leading to the JMSU.
The
other issues are on baselines and constitutionality. All
these aggravate prevarication and criminality issues
already inundating Arroyo.
On
baselines, the September 1, 2004, bilateral JMSU with
China diplomatically declares under its recitals that
the agreement is for “research.” It also avoids the term
“exploration,” and declares “the signing of [this]
agreement by [herein] parties shall not undermine the
basic position held by the government[s] of each party
on the
South China Sea issue.”
Article
2 of the JMSU, likewise, defines the agreement area
under Annex A which PNOC claims are “all under
Philippine territory.”
The
March 14, 2005, tripartite JMSU which includes Vietnam
Oil and Gas Corp. (PetroVietnam) contains the same
recitals. These provide comfort the JMSU has no bearing
on territorial disputes.
Unfortunately, charts show otherwise. Along its
westernmost longitudinal perimeters, 700 kilometers off
Palawan, JMSU’s agreement area lies in a disputed zone
outside the Kalayaan Islands but inside our
200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.
Under
the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos),
a submerged continental shelf is part of baselines. But
some morons recently stalled the legislation critical to
drawing those following the Unclos.
Arroyo’s
factotums have been undermining the JMSU’s recitals,
thus exposing her to constitutional criminality.
According to a Lakas congressman, “the Department of
Foreign Affairs has been lobbying against the passage of
House Bill 3216, which defines the
Philippines’
archipelagic baseline.”
With
friends like these, who needs the opposition to put her
behind bars?
Parrying
questions of patrimony, officials differentiate among
terminologies. Exploration by wholly foreign entities
being banned, the Ombudsman noted that the original JMSU
“could not be pursued because the project involves a
geophysical survey, and that would amount to
exploration.”
On
September 25, 2005, in a recorded interview with a
Japanese news network, a former Energy official, while
responding to queries on strategies and the JMSU,
declared that “the Philippines, on its own, is inviting
the EXPLORATION of areas which are not even disputed,
which fall within the country’s continental shelf, and
we launched at the end of August this year definite
contracting grounds which offer (sic), for bidding for
EXPLORATION, areas for oil and gas, and a number of
these can be found in the Palawan area. In addition, we
have awarded several other ultra-deepwater EXPLORATION
areas and these are also found near the Palawan area or
the islands around Palawan.” (capitalization supplied)
This
tedious prose turns fuzzy when legally applied. For
geologists and the Ombudsman, respectively, seismic
surveys are part of exploration because “exploration
geophysics is the practical application of physical
methods, including seismic surveys,” and the Ombudsman’s
declaration where “geophysical survey[s]…amount to
exploration.”
Joint
explorations are within constitutional bounds if
conducted by a 60:40 Filipino-owned entity, or through
the PNOC Exploration Co.
When
asked, “China, I believe, is also looking at EXPLORING within the
Philippine territorial waters thru CNOOC?” the former
Energy official replied, “That’s right, CNOOC is
partnering with PNOC Exploration Co. With CNOOC, they
are joining forces to DEVELOP a number of areas in the
country.” (capitalization supplied)
Technical definitions are critical. According to Li
Xunke, vice president of China Oilfield Services Ltd. (COSL),
a wholly Chinese-owned entity, “the seismic data
acquisition was conducted by COSL with its exploration
ship code-named Nanshai 502.”
There’s
the betrayal. Without an iota of constitutionally
requisite Filipino equity within its capital structure,
and without a joint-venture corporate vehicle, COSL, the
foreign entity singularly conducting the seismic survey,
is a subsidiary of CNOOC. |
