Malacañang said on Thursday this was not the right time to discuss the revival of the Philippines’ Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) with China and Vietnam to defuse tensions in the West Philippine Sea, as proposed to President Aquino by former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.
In Congress, Party-list Rep Teodoro Casiño of Bayan Muna also frowned on the idea, saying, “talo tayo if this will be revived.”
“It’s premature to talk about that right now....There are a lot of things we have to address. We have to have discussions with other countries in Asean, so it’s not the right time to talk about that right now,” said Secretary Ramon Carandang of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office.
The issue of reviving the JMSU is now pending before the Supreme Court (SC).
The agreement was signed in 2005 by the Philippine National Oil Co., the China National Offshore Oil Co. and PetroVietnam. It expired in 2008, and was never extended or renewed.
Casiño said the problem with the agreement is that the area being explored is within the Philippine territorial waters and not in the disputed areas.
Carandang said in an interview that much has to be done prior to discussing the revivcal of the JMSU. “Ultimately what we do want to see is a way that the resources in the disputed areas can be explored and jointly exploited by the different claimants, but that’s far ahead in the future,” he said.
“Issues being discussed now, such as the Reed Bank, the Spratlys, the Code of Conduct that is not yet binding—all these have to clarified among the countries concerned. There are many steps that have to be taken up at this point before we can seriously discuss the proposal of the former Speaker,” he said.
Carandang also said there may be no need to send a “specialized” diplomatic team to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) members to firm up a consensus for a peaceful resolution of the conflict with China over the Spratlys—a proposal made by Sen. Edgardo Angara.
“We’ve already been doing that. In the previous Asean summit and the bilateral [meetings] that President Aquino has been having with Asean leaders, he has been explaining our position on the Kalayaan Islands and Reed Bank,” he said.
Carandang said the Asean leaders whom the President had met “pledged their support but we still need to bring everybody together to ultimately some kind of ground rules.”
The JMSU covered 142,886 square kilometers for seismic study. The agreement was designed to be commercial in nature and does not affect territorial claims of the respective countries of the area. Under Article 6 of the JMSU, pending a comprehensive and durable settlement of the disputes, the parties concerned may explore or undertake cooperative activities.
By entering into the JMSU, Casiño said the government “sold out” the country’s potential petroleum resource within the agreement area, the country’s “clear and undisputed” territories, archipelagic waters, territorial sea and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Bayan Muna initiated a petition for certiorari against the agreement in 2008.
“Philippine territorial waters and the 200-mile exclusive economic zone belong to the Filipino people and no foreign country, be it China or the United States, should be allowed to use and exploit it for their economic, military or hegemonic interest,” Casiño said.
Independent Rep. Roilo Golez of Parañaque is also opposed to the tripartite agreement. He noted that more than 75 percent of the JMSU area is located within the country’s EEZ. “The JMSU as signed pertains mostly to Philippine EEZ and not the EEZ of the two other signatory countries—China and Vietnam. What is potentially being partitioned for joint development is our EEZ and not the two other signatories’ EEZ. Any JMSU should cover the entire West Philippine Sea to be equitable to the Philippines,” Golez said.
(With Fernan Marasigan)
