Manila Ends Joint Oil Exploration With China, Says Constitutional ‘Abyss’ Prevents Further Progress

The outgoing Philippine administration has canceled a project with China to jointly explore offshore oil deposits, claiming the country’s constitution prevents the project from going further. The deposits are under seas claimed by both countries, making cooperation a touchy subject.

This comes after Manila lodged a new diplomatic complaint with Beijing earlier this month about “illegal fishing” by Chinese fishing boats shadowed by Chinese Coast Guard vessels near Second Thomas Shoal, one of the South China Sea atolls claimed by both countries.

“Three years on and we have not achieved our objective,” outgoing Philippine Foreign minister Teodoro Locsin told reporters on Thursday. “Developing oil and gas resources [is] so critical for the Philippines, but not at the price of sovereignty. Not even a particle of it.”

The two nations pledged to cooperate jointly on energy exploration in the region in 2018, two years after a UN arbitral tribunal rejected Beijing’s claims over certain areas of water in the South China Sea. The tribunal declined to set a maritime boundary, but China and Taiwan still rejected its decision, saying the tribunal lacked jurisdiction.

Still, the two nations pushed forward, since Manila in particular is highly dependent on petroleum imports, getting as much as 30% of it from China last year.

“I tried for three years to come to an agreement, to facilitate exploration for, and exploitation of oil and gas in the WPS [West Philippine Sea]. We got as far as it is constitutionally possible to go," Locsin explained, using the Philippines’ name for part of the South China Sea closest to the island nation.

"One step forward from where we stood, on the edge of the abyss, is a drop into a constitutional crisis. That explains the sudden pullback of my part, which unraveled three years of sincere hard work on the part of Wang Yi and me,” he said of the Chinese foreign minister.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose term ends at the end of the month, has had a capricious relationship with China, playing Beijing and Washington off each other to his benefit. He has variously suggested China annex the Philippines, as well as that the US agree to extend its mutual defense obligations toward Manila over several South China Sea islands claimed by Manila as well as Beijing.

His replacement, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., is the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and is seen as very pro-China. His vice president is Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter, Sara.

Following Marcos’ March election victory, Duterte said in no uncertain terms that his successor must honor the 2018 memorandum of understanding with China on joint oil exploration

He claimed he had been warned by an unnamed Chinese figure that “just in case you send soldiers, we will also send soldiers.” As a result, Marcos “should just follow what we have talked about,” Duterte said.

Locsin sought to defend his legacy against whatever Marcos’ administration decides to do, saying that “It remains with the new administration to protect our sovereignty all the way to the while but now I can rest. The irreducible template of what is constitutionally possible is there in black-and-white. Surrender of any portion of Philippine sovereignty is not an option. Not for love. Not for money.”

“I drew a blood-red line in the WPS,” he added. “You, here, in the audience, met me more than halfway to hold that line. Firing diplomatic protests to intruders in our waters, not missing a single transgression.”

During one particularly heated dispute last year over a group of Chinese fishing vessels that anchored near the Philippines-claimed Scarborough Shoal, Locsin famously told China to “get the f**k out,” although he later clarified that he wasn’t talking to Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister.