Media  explain end of energy exploration talks with China

CHEERS TO the media organizations that followed up on the announcement that government had terminated the Philippines-China energy exploration talks. Interviews by Ted Failon on Radyo5 and Karmina Constantino on ANC provided analysis from experts to discuss the issues involved. 

Duterte orders termination

On June 24, Foreign Affairs secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. announced the end of  talks with China on joint oil and gas exploration in the West Philippine Sea. On President Rodrigo Duterte’s instructions, the decision ended talks that began after the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in 2018. A non-binding agreement, the MOU outlined the framework for joint energy exploration.

Locsin said that the talks were threatening a “Constitutional crisis,” and that proceeding would have unraveled years of negotiations with Beijing. Locsin also said that the country “held on” to the 2016 arbitral ruling, which invalidated China’s claims to areas within the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). 

These vague statements called for more explanation for the public to understand what it all meant. 

Experts scrutinize China’s maneuvers, impact on citizens

ANC Dateline Philippines 

Karmina Constantino, ANC’s Dateline Philippines anchor, interviewed on June 24 retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio, who agreed with the government’s decision to end the talks. Her line of questioning resulted in an analysis of the issues by an esteemed legal luminary who is among the few experts on the Philippines’ territorial claims against China. 

The 19-minute interview established clearly the position of China – that it would explore the WPS, not as a service provider, but as a state with rights over the territory.  

Constantino asked about the “crisis” cited by Locsin. Carpio explained that despite signing the MOU, China did not want to operate under the country’s contracting system, which maintains the country’s ownership of oil and gas within its EEZ. 

Beijing also wanted to change a provision stating that the service contract shall be governed by Philippine law. This would have violated the Constitutional mandate requiring the State’s protection of the Philippine’s marine wealth, Carpio explained.

Constantino probed further to understand the motivation of China. Carpio’s response was that China may have felt, given its “military might” that it could compel sovereign states to simply yield under pressure and surrender their territorial rights. 

She then asked Carpio to explain how the issue could be a “gut issue” for the public. Carpio described the impacts of energy and fuel shortages on how people live, with widespread blackouts leading to the closure of factories and loss of jobs. Carpio also noted that government would be forced to import its energy, which would be costlier due to global competition. 

Radyo5

Jay Batongbacal, Director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, also backed Locsin’s position.  On Radyo5, Ted Failon interviewed Batongbacal in Filipino, which helped to make the discussion of complex issues more accessible to the public.

The 18-minute discussion expanded the framework of the discussion, with Failon leading with the idea that China was “making a fool” (“inuuto”) of the Philippines. Batongbacal, agreeing, also pointed out that the government’s decision to sign the memorandum with China prevented the country from seeking other foreign partners for exploration. He added that during the last six years, the government also failed to more actively develop strategies to protect its energy supplies. In all  that time, China never showed any sign that it would be willing to recognize Philippine sovereignty over the areas to be explored.  

He called attention to other disadvantages. Because of limited resources and the positioning of Chinese militia vessels in the area, the country could not even monitor China’s activities in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), which could have included oil exploration on its own. He lamented the waste of the last six years when the country did not do anything to protect its own energy supplies. As a reminder, he said that should we discover our own oil, it would still take ten years to make the resource productive. 

As the discussion with China had gone nowhere, he urged the new administration to recover “lost time” in the next six years. 

These two interviews should lead to more coverage of the need for our leaders to assert Philippine sovereign rights in all negotiations with foreign countries, as well as  to find  partners who will respect the country’s exclusive territorial zone. All Filipinos will be affected by the failure or success of these efforts; its continuing coverage should not be sidelined or allowed to fall out of the news agenda.

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