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Malacañang is urging Congress to ignore Chinese protests and pass
the bill defining Philippine territorial baselines. The message
surprised administration critics. It certainly assuages our
people’s worries that this administration has indeed, as its
critics claim, sold out our territory to China.
House Bill No. 3216 passed on second reading
last December. The LEDAC—the Legislative-Executive Development
Advisory Council—classifies it as a “priority measure.” But
pressure from China and signals from the Palace apparently slowed
down action on the bill.
Suddenly the message from Malacañang came.
Presidential Chief Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol that if the law is
not enacted by May 2009, we would lose our claim to some of the
islands in the Spratlys, following the UN Convention on the Law of
the Seas’ 200-mile zone provision. Our claim, of course, is also
backed by the fact that these islands have been continuously
occupied by Filipinos and no one else.
“If China has complaints [about our passage of
a law defining the expanse and extent of our territory], Apostol
said, “it can always raise the issue at the proper United Nations
venue for resolving such problems it but in the meantime the
Philippines should follow UNCLOS.”
These words, spoken on behalf of the President,
gained added strength from Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita who
gave a press conference where he announced that President Arroyo
would certify the baselines bill as urgent. He also said the
Presidential Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs (CMOA), which
he heads, is in fact preparing for submission to the United Nations
the definition of Philippine baselines.
These should make Arroyo administration critics
reconsider their claims of “sell-out” and “treason.”
Billion-dollar loans
The critics have condemned the administration
for allegedly selling out Philippine territory in the Spratlys to
China. The price for the Palace’s allegedly treasonous surrender
of our part of the strategic and reputedly oil- and natural-gas-rich
Spratly islands is China’s commitment to lend billions of US
dollars to the Philippines at the rate of US$2 billion a year.
The critics further claimed that the
US$329M-plus that was to be lent by China for our government to use
to buy Chinese equipment, knowhow and services in the controversial
ZTE National Broadband project was part of the annual US$2-billion
loan promised to the Arroyo administration.
Ermita’s and Apostol’s pronouncements help
dispel the accusations—but only partly.
Clarifications still awaited
Mrs. Arroyo and Cabinet officials involved in
the Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking with China and, later, with
Vietnam, still have to make clarifications and categorically deny
the charges. They must answer every question about each problematic
provision of the JSMU and show it does not violate our Constitution
and our licensing laws that Malacañang critics and legal scholars
claimed have been breached.
The administration definitely must explain to
the people and to the investors in Forum Energy corporation why the
license granted to it by the Department of Energy and Natural
Resources in 2002 to explore for oil and gas in the Reed Bank of
Western Palawan was being threatened with revocation after the
agreement was signed with China. Forum Energy’s exploration
license, ABS-CBN’s Ricky Carandang writes in a detailed special
report, covers an area undisputedly belonging to the Philippines. He
reports that the Chinese government put pressure on the Philippines
to push out Energy Forum. Does it mean that under the JSMU, oil and
gas exploration by groups other than those approved by the
People’s Republic of China are no longer permissible?
Chinese hegemony
Does Communist Party-ruled China really wield
great powers over the Philippines?
When the Senate was just starting its ZTE NBN
deal hearings, Palace officials warned that the probe would ruin our
country’s good relations with China. The warnings were premised on
the fear of displeasing Beijing’s government officials and the
executives of its state-owned corporations.
The revelations of Chairman Antonio Cuenco
of the House Committee on Foreign Relations seem to substantiate the
warnings.
Rep. Cuenco revealed that after the passage of
HB No. 3216 on second reading last December, the Chinese Embassy’s
charges d’affaires met with him to express the Chinese
government’s displeasure. He also revealed that the Philippine
Embassy in Beijing had faxed him the Chinese foreign office’s note
verbale also protesting the bill. As a result, the House has
soft-pedaled on passing a law that is vital to our country’s
territorial integrity.
During the Cold War and the years before Deng
Xiaoping ushered in the Chinese era that accepts “To be rich is
glorious” and promotes market-economy capitalism, China and its
local communist allies never tired of warning the Filipinos of
American imperialism and US hegemony.
It is ironic that Philippine officials today, no
longer overly sensitive to what Washington and the US Embassy might
think and say, are willing to kowtow to Beijing.
We hope Secretary Ermita’s and Legal Counsel
Apostol’s call for the urgent passage of HB No. 3216 is a sign
that we are wrong.
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