Category: gma

Sierra Madre stays, Recto Bank ready for drilling

Looking back on my blogposts on China, I found in this one “our china relations, our u.s. alliance” a quote from Rodel Rodis‘s “What did Erap and GMA promise China?” (originally posted 9 years ago, sometime 2014, last edited 14 March 2021):

… on March 17, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei revealed in a press conference in Beijing that two previous Philippine presidents had made an “unequivocal commitment to China ”that the Philippines would tow away the Sierra Madre from the Ayungin Shoal. China demanded that Pres. Aquino “heed the promises” made by his predecessors otherwise, Hong Lei warned, the Philippines risks losing its “credibility”.

Fastforward to August 2023 when, upon China’s “reminder” that the Philippines had promised to tow away the BSP Sierra Madre from Ayungin, the question was, who made such an “unequivocal commitment”? Not Erap, said Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. Not me, said GMA.

Easy to believe them and disbelieve China that is known to make false claims especially about Philippine territory.  Jarius Bondoc suggests we move on, start drilling for gas and oil sa Recto Bank, now na, before Malampaya dries up.

Drill Recto gas, oil now for our national survival
Jarius Bondoc

Pointless to speculate which of two pro-China presidents promised to remove BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin Shoal. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. already rescinded such deal, if it existed at all.

Just drill oil and gas at Recto (Reed) Bank. Do it now, or suffer economic collapse.

Malampaya offshore gas field will dry up by next year; 2027 at the latest. It fuels 40 percent of Luzon’s electricity. With no replacement for Malampaya, Luzon will suffer daylong blackouts.

That’ll be disastrous. Factories, offices, shops, telecoms, trains, schools, hospitals, hotels, restaurants, cinemas, churches will close. No work or classes from home either. Foreign investors will leave. Jobs will vanish. Urbanites will flee to provinces for scarce food. Linked to Luzon, even Visayas’ power grid will be disrupted.

Recto has proven reserves. In 2013 the US Energy Information Administration estimated it to hold 5.4 billion barrels of oil and 55.1 trillion cubic feet of gas. That’s 63.5 times more oil and 20.5 times more gas than Malampaya, whose lifespan is only 24 or so years.

“We’ve long known that,” says Benny Gan, retired petroleum geologist of the Department of Energy’s precursor, Office of Energy Affairs. In the 70’s OEA explored Recto’s Sampaguita field, only 250 feet deep. “It’s the main study in a roomful of reports, photos and videos.”

Recto is 120 miles from Palawan, well within the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone. It’s 650 miles from Hainan, China’s nearest province, thus outside its EEZ. The Hague arbitral court affirmed that in 2016. China can’t claim it by imagined “nine-dash line.”

Although China snubbed the hearings, it’s bound by The Hague ruling under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Its state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. has no right to drill there.

CNOOC cannot subcontract to private exploration firms, retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio says. Shell, Occidental, Exxon, among others, are bound by international law, so will shun CNOOC.

The Philippine government has long awarded Service Contract-72, covering Recto. Manuel V. Pangilinan’s PXP Energy Corp. and subsidiary Forum Energy Ltd. are ready to drill.

Trespassing Philippine EEZ, Chinese gunboats chased Forum’s vessels away several times. In 2020 the Duterte admin contemplated joint exploration with CNOOC. Talks failed as CNOOC’s terms violated Philippine Constitution.

Forum remobilized foreign partners to drill. President Rody Duterte stopped it after receiving a call from Beijing, Carpio recounts. “Twice Forum lost millions of pesos in false starts. Let it proceed now under Philippine Navy protection. National survival depends on it.”

Beijing anticipates drilling resumption. Its naval and coast guard ships, reinforced by maritime militia trawlers, are massing up at Del Pilar (Iroquois) Reef at Recto’s westside. Same at Escoda (Sabina) Shoal eastside. It wants to drive away the beached BRP Sierra Madre from Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal inside Recto.

Defy China. “Let’s do it the way Malaysia and Indonesia did two years ago,” Carpio proposes.

Beijing also claims Malaysia’s EEZ and Indonesia’s Natuna Isles. Invoking our Hague ruling as support, Malaysia held naval exercises with the US and Australia while drilling oil nearby. Indonesia invited a US aircraft carrier to sail by while drilling in Natuna.

On both occasions Beijing shrieked about owning the entire South China Sea by historical right. Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta ignored it. They’re reaping benefits from their petroleum resources, Carpio notes.

The Philippines can install rigs while holding drills with the US Navy under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. As well, with the British Admiralty because Forum was incorporated in London. A petroleum-sufficient Philippines will ease world demand and prices.

Beijing will avoid military confrontation, Carpio calculates. An attack on Filipino government vessels escorting Forum drillers will trigger the Phl-US Mutual Defense Treaty. China Communist Party’s National Congress and Politburo have decided to take control of SCS by intimidation, not war.

“Oil and gas from Recto will save our economy,” Carpio says. “Let Beijing howl. We’ll have our fuel. What better way to assert our EEZ sovereign rights!”

Sampaguita field can pump petroleum via pipeline 150 kilometers northeast to Malampaya. The latter can in turn pump to Batangas in mainland Luzon via its existing 504-kilometer pipeline.

“If not for us circling Malampaya, China would have annexed it long ago,” a ranking PN officer confides. In 2020 a Chinese warship aimed weapons at a PN patrol there. “We’re ready to defend Recto too,” another admiral assures.

Upon operationalizing Sampaguita, other sovereignty measures can follow:

• Erect an Ayungin lighthouse to replace disintegrating Sierra Madre. The 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct among SCS disputants bars military buildup. A civilian lighthouse is allowable, says geopolitics expert Renato de Castro, PhD.

• Sue China for damages at The Hague or the International Tribunal for Law of the Sea. The Philippines and Forum can compute opportunities lost from China’s menacing since 2007, says international maritime lawyer Jay Batongbacal, PhD.

• Exact recompense for China’s fish poaching and destruction of reef resources, like rare metals and new medicines, at Escoda, Del Pilar and Recto. Also, for concreting nearby Panganiban (Mischief) Reef into an island-fortress since 1992.

The late foreign secretary Albert del Rosario had totaled it at $662 million per year. Assisting him, marine scientist Deo Florence Onda, PhD, calculated the wrecked resources at $353,429 per hectare per year, based on the 2012 Studies on Global Ecosystems by Dutch firm Elsevier, world leader in scientific-technical-medical information.

Worst ChaCha Ever

charter change alert

there’s going to be some serious action in congress next week. speaker gloria arroyo will be setting in motion the final steps toward charter change.  she hasn’t dropped the ball, she’s still on chacha mode, and federalism is still on the burner.  read katrina’s Winning VS Duterte: Stand against #ChaCha. 

gloria’s golpe-de-gulat

sinabayan pa talaga ni madam speaker ang red october eklat ng militar.  na-deja-vu ako.  in the run-up to erap’s ouster, then vp gloria conspired (or maybe just met often), it is said, with some generals intending to withdraw support from erap (five different factions daw).  and we know how very far that got her.

this time around she’s house speaker and pushing her version of a federal constitution and perceived to be fast-tracking a constituent assembly, never mind the senate, what senate, just in time for a rev-gov situation it would seem, na di pa pala binibitawan ng mga ka-DDS.  read lito monico lorenzana’s Duterte is not a Marcos.

but wait.  just 2 months ago she announced that it was too late for chacha and federalism, lalo na’t kailangan pa ng info campaign at ng plebiscite.  read Speaker Arroyo: Not enough time for charter change of aug 16.

Arroyo has described as “black propaganda” the claim of some senators and critics that she is eyeing the position of prime minister under a federal system.

“I think those who are raising those issues are those that want to stir controversy,” Arroyo said. “As far as elections are concerned, I’ve already said I’m not in favor of term extension, so I’m not in favor of no-el (no elections).”

In the first place, Arroyo said there is no such position in the setup recommended by Duterte’s consultative committee on Cha-cha, which she added was federal-presidential.

… Arroyo has stopped Veloso’s committee from drafting its own version of a new Constitution. “It’s waste of time. That should be done by the assembly,” Arroyo told committee members during a meeting of the panel, which she attended.

“So now we will work with Senate President (Vicente) Sotto and fellow senators on how to move forward,” she said.

anong nangyari between then and now.  obviously hello gloria and and her gang continued anyway to draft the house version of a federal constitution — with input from senate prez sotto and his gang, possibly?  Resolution of Both Houses No. 15! — just in case?

plan B siguro, in case bongbong doesn’t make it to veep.  how else to circumvent leni’s lawful succession except by adopting gloria’s proposed charter providing that in the transition to federalism-kuno under a rev-gov, the president in case of death or illness or incapacity will be succeeded by the senate president, not by vp leni.  a draft charter that is already so controversial, even self-servingly obscene, on so many points, like, wow, no-term-limits for reps and senators, parang dictatorship of the dynasties, among other unthinkables.  at parang di pinoproblema na baka di tanggapin ng publiko.  siguro walang plebiscite, a la marcos, people’s assemblies lang where people raise their hands when asked who wants rice, ehe, who likes the new saligang batas?

and then of course we have to factor in duterte’s health problem — he ain’t looking or sounding good — that, if taken with his expressed complaints about how hard the job is, and how he’s willing to give it all up right now, just say the word, puts the succession question squarely on the table.  read raissa robles’s IF DUTERTE IS TOO ILL TO LEAD THE PHILIPPINES, WHO IS NEXT IN LINE FOR POWER? 

Among those positioning themselves for leadership are Vice-President Leni Robredo, the opposition Liberal Party which she now heads, and members of the Magdalo Group as well as moderate left-wing Akbayan and civil society groups.

Second is former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr and his mother, Congresswoman Imelda Marcos, and sister, Ilocos Sur Governor Imee Marcos.

Next comes the Davao group, headed by Duterte’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, and other Duterte loyalists. These include retired military officers, sitting public officials and diehard civilian Duterte supporters.

Fourth is House Speaker and former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her political allies, while fifth is the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front and its above-ground organisations.

vp robredo is next in the line of succession, no ifs or buts.  ang problema, duterte won’t step down kung si leni ang papalit sa kanya.  duterte wants someone like bongbong, like chiz? who will guarantee that he won’t go to jail for any crimes he might have committed while president.  thus this impasse that seems to be headed for a breaking point, with some prodding, it would seem, from hello gloria.  under her proposed charter, she can run again for any office she wants, though she says she won’t, she’ll be writing her memoir, but who knows, maybe she’s lying as usual.

and then, again, maybe she’ll get her wish to write a book, maybe her chacha won’t fly, too outrageous.  or maybe the case against her majority floor leader rolando andaya filed sa ombudsman by DDS commissioner greco belgica is just the first of many such SALN-related cases.

“Marami siyang hindi na-declare na baril, mga sasakyan, mga properties, lahat po ‘yun. We saw na hindi na-declare na maayos,” Belgica said, referring to Andaya’s SALN for 2016 and 2017.

reminds me of a congressman caught on video welcoming newly elected ones to congress with the line, “this is the life, guys!” or something to that effect.  if memory serves, nakagalitan siya, at napahiya, tried to take back his words.  sino na nga ‘yon?

the gloves are off.  labo-labo na.