MANILA, 10 March 2008 — The head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday cautioned fellow politicians against dragging Philippine-China relations into their fight with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago issued the warning as opposition senators pushed for a inquiry into a controversial agreement on the disputed Spratly Islands that the Philippines signed with the governments of China and Vietnam.
Santiago, who has just arrived from her campaign for the post of judge of the International Court of Justice, said the Senate inquiry into Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) signed in 2005 will probably be assigned to her committee and the blue-ribbon committee.
She said that while the JMSU raises the issue of possible violation of the constitutional provision on Philippine sovereignty or jurisdiction over defined national territory, “a mere scientific or technical cooperation agreement, which does not diminish or threaten Philippine sovereignty or jurisdiction, is constitutional.”
The JMSU will collect data and information on the potential oil and gas reserves in the area, planned to last for three years, at the cost of $15 million. Questions about the JMSU has fueled speculations that Arroyo signed it as part of a deal to give Chinese companies preferential treatment in securing contracts with the Philippine government.
China’s telecommunications firm ZTE Corp. has been mired in a controversy over a botched $329 million contract to set up a national broadband network for the Philippines.
A losing bidder exposed the contract to have been overpriced by $130 millions and that huge kickbacks were advanced to a group that included the president, her husband and former Election Commission Chairman Benjamin Abalos. Abalos was forced to step down late last year and Arroyo canceled the contract as the controversy threatened to bring down her administration.
Arroyo’s cancellation of the contract initially calmed down protests, but the administration’s apparent attempts to stop erstwhile government consultant Rodolfo Lozada Jr. from testifying before a Senate inquiry, revived public interest into the scandal.
Santiago warned, however, that dragging the country’s relations with China into the political fray would be disastrous.
“The anti-Arroyo campaign should not be turned into an anti-China campaign. We should consign power plays to the domestic arena.
“International relations and diplomacy are too important to our national interest to be used as partisan political ploys. It takes decades to build up good interstate relations,” she said.
She pointed out that China has extended preferential loans to the Philippines for various development programs, and is now the main financial provider for Southeast Asia, ahead of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and aid programs from the United States and Japan. (With input from Inquirer News Service)
