Militants oppose oil exploration by US company in Sulu Sea

Militants oppose oil exploration by US company in Sulu Sea

By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:15:00 06/15/2008

A MILITANT FISHERFOLK ALLIANCE on Saturday vowed to oppose the government’s plan to let the American oil firm ExxonMobil drill for oil in the Sulu Sea.

The Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas said its opposition to ExxonMobil’s $110-million oil exploration plan, expected to start by the middle of next year, will be “one of the biggest battles of Filipino fisherfolk in the very near future.”

“We will fight this transnational plunder courtesy of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s first-rate puppetry to US interests,” Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap said in a press statement.

The group said it was apprehensive of the project’s impact on the livelihoods of fishing communities in Palawan, Western Visayas, Zamboanga peninsula and Sulu archipelago.

The Sulu Sea, in the southwest Philippines, connects the South China Sea and the Celebes Sea and is considered to be on the route of tuna and other schools of fish leaving or going to the Pacific Ocean.

Preview of agreement

Hicap claimed that the approval of the ExxonMobil exploration deal was “just a preview of the forthcoming RP-US Free Trade Agreement, which Malacañang will offer to the White House” in time for Ms Arroyo’s state visit in the third week of June.

The country should expect more “crimes of treason and sell-outs” in line with Ms Arroyo’s trip, Hicap added.

Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, after his meeting with ExxonMobil officials last week, announced that the Texas-based US oil and gas producer “would be able to strike oil in the Sulu Sea.”

Reyes said ExxonMobil, a major world player, would not go to a country where the potential is not great. US oil firm officials headed by Stephen Greenlee said the plan to explore for oil and gas in Sulu was a big deal for the company, and that ExxonMobil was encouraged by preliminary seismic data on the potential of oil and gas reserves in the Sulu Sea.

Hicap said Pamalakaya would build on its recent experience in opposing oil and gas exploration in the Tañon Strait between Cebu and Negros.

“We defeated Japan in that battle, we will prepare for protracted battle against ExxonMobil,” Hicap said, recalling the Pamalakaya-led protests in cooperation with nongovernment environmental organizations, academic groups and legal experts that compelled Japan’s Petroleum Exploration Co. Ltd. (Japex) and its local subsidiary Japex Philippines to give up its offshore mining activities in Tañon.

No oil and gas in strait

Japex’s mother company decided to relinquish its exploration contract on June 20, 2008, saying there was no promise of oil and gas in the protected strait.

“But while Pamalakaya is happy to send Japex out of Tañon, we have some scores to settle with Malacañang for the economic and environmental havoc they created there,” Hicap said.

Aside from ExxonMobil, Pamalakaya said Australian mining firm NorAsia was also reportedly set to conduct oil explorations in the Cebu-Bohol Strait, while Dutch-owned Premium Oil will also launch offshore explorations in the Ragay Gulf of Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte and Quezon.

There are other foreign firms already mining for oil and natural gas off Palawan that fishing communities oppose, Hicap added.

Pamalakaya said that the most ambitious oil and gas exploration plan they have heard of is an RP-China offshore mining venture in the disputed Spratly Islands that will include portions of Palawan province.