THE Asean Petroleum Security Agreement (Apsa) signed by the Philippines along with four other Asean member-countries, requires concurrence of the Philippine Senate.

This was emphasized Monday by the militant fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), insisting that Apsa, as a regional-wide agreement among member-countries of Asean, needs concurrence of the legislature.

The group suspects that Malacañang is using Apsa to further allow offshore mining exploration, which the group said is destructive, in the guise of fuel or oil shortage. 

“Malacañang is constitutionally, legally and politically obliged to submit the draft to the Senate once it signed the oil-security pact during the Asean summit in Bangkok this December. It should not treat the pact as another executive agreement and clinch the oil agreement in accordance with their own narrow and sinister agenda,” Pamalakaya national chairman Fernando Hicap said in a press statement.

Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, who attended the recently concluded 26th Asean Ministers on Energy Meeting in Bangkok, said energy ministers of Asean have approved the draft of the oil pact that would assure the region of an oil supply in the event of shortage.

The Apsa, signed by energy ministers of Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, states that in case of a 10-percent shortfall in the supply of oil, member-countries would agree to sell their oil at friendship prices to any Asean member that is facing shortage or tight supply of petroleum products.

At the same time, the Asean oil pact called on the private sector to engage in energy exploration in the region, where energy companies based in Asean nations could infuse more cash for oil-and-gas exploration and actively participate in joint ventures to search for untapped energy resources in the region.

“Is it really an oil-security pact for the benefit of oil-lacked Asean nations or a manipulative measure to put premium to left and right awarding of service contracts in the Philippines and all over the region to offshore mining companies conducting archipelagic- wide oil-and-gas explorations?” Hicap said.

Hicap theorized that Apsa is meant to promote offshore mining in the Philippines and in other members of Asean and justify their dependence to global oil monopolies under the guise of promoting alternative source of energy and climate change.

Hicap said foreign exploration groups such as NorAsia of Australia, Japex of Japan, Premium Oil of The Netherlands, ExxonMobil of the United States and other big oil companies are conducting oil-and-gas explorations in the Philippines to the detriment of fisherfolk livelihood and the marine environment.

In Cebu-Bohol Strait and the eastern part of the Visayan basin, NorAsia will conduct offshore mining in 445,000 hectares off the strait and the Leyte Sea, while Premium Oil of the Netherlands is eyeing the Ragay Gulf encompassing the provinces of Quezon, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte and portions of Albay province.

Pamalakaya said prior to the Apsa, the Philippine government had already signed another agreement, which is the memorandum of understanding on the Trans-Asean Gas Pipeline  with Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam on July 5, 2002, in Bali, Indonesia. Former energy secretary Vincent Perez signed the agreement in behalf of the Arroyo government.

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