PRESIDENT Arroyo and former Speaker Jose V. de Venecia may have committed treason if the Philippine government signs a so-called "Spratly Deal" with Beijing in exchange for loans attended by bribery and corruption.

Malaya publisher Amado Macasaet said he was told by a source that under the "Spratly Deal," China would be allowed to explore territorial waters of the Philippines.

"This is treason because the pact has the effect of giving away Philippine sovereignty to a foreign country. In return, Chinese-owned firms provide the Philippines with overpriced loans for numerous projects," he said.

He said the issue has not reached the attention of the Senate but "when it does, I am reasonably certain that the Upper House will insist that the agreement be considered a treaty which must be ratified by the Senate."

He said he was told that officials of the Philippine Navy and the Department of Foreign Affairs have raised the question of sovereignty. "My source told me that they were ignored without even explaining what the matter is all about or how the Philippines can benefit from it."

Macasaet said the Chinese are pressing for commitment on the deal. "It has not signed the North Rail agreement and insists that the Spratly deal be concluded simultaneously with the $500 million rail modernization project that covers 27 kilometers from Caloocan to Malolos, Bulacan."

He said Arroyo and De Venecia chose to ignore the fact that all minerals and marine resources are owned by the country whose domain extends 200 nautical miles from its nearest shoreline.

This, he said, is provided under the UN Conference on the Law of the Seas.

Since the project involves national sovereignty and patrimony, the "Spratly Deal" should be in the form of a treaty subject to the ratification by the Senate, he said.

Macasaet said someone who supports the deal told him that the mode should be a joint venture, not an executive agreement.

But then a lawyer claimed that a joint venture is a blatant mode of a circumventing the treaty ratification required by the Constitution.

The lawyer said a joint venture is not acceptable because it is a commercial transaction.

On the other hand, a treaty is a sovereign act that must be ratified by the Senate.

Under a treaty required by the Constitution, the Philippines partly or wholly cedes its sovereign rights.

The national broadband deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corporation and the North and South railway projects would be financed by loans from China. The Department of Trade has signed a memorandum of agreement with ZTE International for four projects that would cost around $4 billion.

The Department of Education and Culture has its Cyber-Ed, also to be financed with loans from China. There are talks of overprice in all these projects.

Macasaet said his source told him that behind all these loan accommodations from China is the motive that both Arroyo and De Venecia agreed to.

The Spratly deal also includes special and exclusive economic zones, already contained in the memorandum of agreement signed between DTI and ZTE International.

Sensing the threat to its claim to the same group of islands, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian visited the Spratlys last Feb. 2 over the objections of China, but with very few words of protest from the Philippines.

Said to be potentially rich in gas and oil deposits, the Spratlys are claimed as a whole by China, Taiwan and Vietnam, while parts of it are claimed by Malaysia and the Philippines.

As it now turns out, the real motive of China is to explore, under an agreement, internal waters of the Philippines. These waters are limited to Filipinos.

"We all talk about loans from China and the briberies that attend them. Unknown to many of us is the fact that China may not sign the final agreements for these dirty projects unless the Philippines signs a deal covering the Spratlys," Macasaet said.

"The Chinese obviously dangled anomalous loans in exchange for the Spratly deal. What is involved here is not just bribery. It’s something worse. Its high treason," he said.

Macasaet said that in this treaty which both countries cover with the word "deal," the Senate has been completely ignored.

FAT BRIBES

In sum, Macasaet said, the accommodations in the form of billions of dollars of loans, overprice not included, are carrots dangled by the government of China, to get back a bigger payoff – the exploration of internal waters which belong exclusively to the Filipinos.

"How soon or how late the Chinese government will sign the final agreement for the loans and the projects is an indication of how we have plunged ourselves into an abyss that is nothing but high treason," he said.

Macasaet said his source in Malacañang intimated that the agreements for the North and South Rail may be not be finally signed until Arroyo and De Venecia make good their word that the Philippines will allow China to explore its internal waters.