e have to give it to Joe de
Venecia. He has been stabbed in the back by the administration he helped in
consolidating its power after grabbing the presidency from Joseph Estrada. But
he strenuously defends the 2004 joint oil exploration agreement signed with
China, the only official with some stature at the moment sticking his neck out
in defense of Gloria Arroyo who has been accused of "treason" for the sellout of
Philippine territory.
De Venecia believes the disputed areas in the South China Sea
contain unimaginable riches in the form of oil deposits. No exploration is going
on, however, because of the conflicting territorial claims. He thus sees the
agreement with China, which Vietnam joined later, as the key to unlocking the
untapped treasures for the benefit of all claimants, including the Philippines
which just happens to be the only country in the Southeast Asian region with
only minuscule oil production in the form of the natural gas output of the
Malampaya field.
In defending the agreement, De Venecia nonetheless has joined
calls for making public the agreement, particularly Annex A which delineates the
area covered. He obviously believes the agreement can be defended in Plaza
Miranda.
We disagree with De Venecia. We believe the Philippines is at
the losing end because areas which are clearly part of Philippine territory are
covered in the agreement. We are not even talking here yet of the islands in the
Kalayaan Group which are occupied by Philippine forces.
The agreement is supposed to cover territories covered by
overlapping claims. So why did the Philippines include around 28,000 square
kilometers of its territory into the 142,000 square kilometers of area covered?
These areas fall within the territory covered by the Treaty of Paris.
The only other claimant to the 28,000 square kilometer area,
which is a huge chunk of the seas off the shores Palawan, is China. The claim,
however, is based on China’s claim over the WHOLE South China Sea on the basis
of historic right. Nobody in the region, or the whole world for that matter,
takes China’s claim seriously, for doing so would leave all countries in the
region owning nothing but strips of waters 12 miles from their shorelines and
concede South China Sea as a Chinese lake.
In fact, official maps of China based on this purported
historic right put the seas 12 miles from the shores of Palawan, not to speak of
Zambales, Pangasinan and the Ilocos provinces, as Chinese territorial waters.
Hell, if we follow the Chinese maps, the Malampaya oilfield
is within Chinese territory.
Do we now allow Beijing to share in Malampaya’s output based on the
"condominium" principle underlying the 2004 agreement?
