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The contract was kept from public attention since it was conceived in 2004. It calls for joint seismic research, but also investigations into oil and gas deposits in the area. The 87 million Filipino people were not informed that such an agreement existed, signed by both parties in 2005. The issue only came to light courtesy of a recent report in the Far Eastern Economic Review.
The 142,886 square kilometers of the Spratly Islands belong to the Philippine government according to an agreement that dates back to 1898, when the Treaty of Paris was signed on Dec.10 of that year. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea defines the Philippines' exclusive economic zone, and upholds its claims over the islands.
Allowing China to take part in exploring marine territory that belongs to the Philippines has been called treason and a sell-out of the nation's sovereignty by many groups and individuals who adamantly oppose the deal. Lawmakers in the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives crossed party lines to investigate what they called a crime of treason against the republic.
Government officials and Chinese Embassy officials in Manila issued statements denying allegations that the deal had been approved in exchange for loans from China worth US$8 billion. Anti-corruption groups have said the loans were graft-ridden and for questionable projects, and much bigger than the ZTE broadband contract the government had made with a Chinese company, and was forced to abort in the face of public protest.
Protests against the ocean exploration deal were led by the organization of fisherfolk, Pamalakaya, which submitted a diplomatic protest to the Chinese government. The group's national Chairman Fernando Hicap and Vice Chair Salvador France said they did not expect China's ambassador to Manila, Lin Jinjun, to respond to their protest because China is hostile to any investigation that places it in a bad light or suggests it is engaged in transnational plunder.
In fact, top officials of the Chinese Communist Party are now in the Philippines talking to government officials, asking them to stop criticism of China and allow the offshore mining project to proceed.
In an interview with local Philippine media, Hicap said the Philippine-China Spratly deal on offshore mining "by orientation and by design is meant to make Chinese oil groups richer. It is meant for capital accumulation and to satisfy the Chinese own brand of greed."
Political observers agreed that the deal could allow Chinese oil corporations to undertake offshore mining in Philippine-claimed territories in the Spratly Islands, adding that this appeared to be the primary orientation of the agreement. There are thought to be 3.3 million cubic meters of natural gas in the area, excluding oil.
"On the part of the Arroyo government, the JMSU deal is an act of treason and a sell-out rolled into one. On the other hand, the Chinese government cannot deny the fact that it was party to the gross violation of Filipino people's sovereign rights and the country's national patrimony," said Minnie F. Lopez, a law student and a paralegal expert based in Manila.
She added that the agreement must be viewed as aggression and plunder by a foreign power against a nation of people fighting against any kind o foreign invasion and exploitation, whether political, military or economic.
The Philippine claim over certain territories in the Spratlys has a legal, political and moral basis. It is defined in the Constitution and was upheld on several occasions as part of the country's territorial waters in accordance with the rules and principles prescribed by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
These territories, which the Chinese government intends to explore for offshore mining activities, are the breeding and spawning grounds of Philippine tuna and other marine species. These territories as well provide passage for the entry and migration of migratory stocks in the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines.
The JMSU, which covers 142,886 square kilometers in the South China Sea, puts at risk not only the Philippine-claimed territories in the Spratlys but almost its entire exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf of the Philippine archipelago.
This is not the first time for Pamalakaya to file a diplomatic protest against the Chinese government. Last September, the group filed a protest in connection with the US$329 million National Broadband Network deal and against a Philippine-China agreement consisting of 18 agricultural and fisheries pacts that would undermine the livelihoods of Philippine farmers and fisherfolk.
It is politically and morally correct for every Filipino and Chinese to demand that these agreements be scrapped as they are detrimental to the lives and livelihood of rural folk in the Philippines and contrary to the interests of working people in China.
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(Gerry Albert Corpuz is a correspondent of Bulatlat.com, an alternative Philippine online news site. He is also head of the information department of Pamalakaya, a national federation of small fisherfolk organizations in the Philippines. His website is www.gerryalbertcorpuz.motime.com, and he can be contacted at themanager98@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Gerry Albert Corpuz.)
