MANILA – A memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the Philippines and China signed recently does not yet constitute a joint exploration of the resources at the West Philippine Sea.
Department of Energy secretary Alfonso Cusi and Department of Foreign Affairs secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. made this clarification amid criticisms of the controversial agreement.
“There’s no joint exploration yet,” Cusi told a news conference. “That is a memorandum of cooperation to explore ways on how we can harness the indigenous resources in West Philippine Sea.”
“What was signed was just a step to move forward the discussions to resolve issues on how to explore, exploit and develop indigenous resources in the West Philippines Sea,” he added.
For his part, Locsin told cable news channel CNN Philippines on Thursday that the Philippines will “lose nothing and gain everything” with the MOU with China.
Both governments agree to establish “an intergovernmental joint steering committee” to look into possible energy cooperation, stated part of the Philippines-China Memorandum of Understanding on Oil and Gas Development.
The committee, which is to be co-chaired by the foreign ministries and co-vice chaired by the vice ministries, will be responsible for negotiating and agreeing the cooperation arrangements in maritime areas to which they will apply, and deciding the number of working groups to be established and for which part of the cooperation area each working group is established, the deal stated.
“Each working group will negotiate and agree on inter-entrepreneurial, technical and commercial arrangements that will apply in the relevant working area,” Locsin told the program “The Source.”
According to Locsin, each of such groups “will consist of representatives from enterprises authorized by the two governments.”
“All discussions, negotiations and activities of the two governments, or the authorized enterprises under or pursuant to this Memorandum of Understanding will be without prejudice to the respective legal positions of both governments,” he said.
The MOU was among the 29 documents signed and exchanged by both countries in the fields of trade and investment, banking and finance, infrastructure, agriculture, education, culture, and people-to-people exchanges./PN
