All the Way to Washington

With the national government’s pleading declaring Camago and Malampaya as outside of Palawan’s territory, the implication is that the oil and gas fields in these areas are up for grabs for the multinational oil giants. The list of beneficiaries from such a declaration goes all the way to Washington.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recently aroused controversy in Palawan, an island province southwest of Manila, by declaring that the oil and natural gas fields in Camago and Malampaya, northwest of the said province, are not part of its territory. This, even as both lie within the country’s 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos III), to which the Philippines is a signatory.

The national government made this declaration by way of a pleading before the Regional Trial Court in Puerto Princesa City, the island province’s capital, submitted in response to an earlier petition by the Palawan provincial government demanding a share of the revenues supposed to be earned from the ongoing oil and natural gas explorations in Camago and Malampaya.

With the national government’s pleading declaring Camago and Malampaya as outside of Palawan’s territory, the implication is that the oil and gas fields in these areas are up for grabs for the multinational oil giants, as Palawan appears on the maps as the country’s westernmost island and Camago-Malampaya lie more than 80 nautical miles northwest of it and, consequently, even farther from Luzon island. This means that if Camago and Malampaya are not part of Palawan, neither are they part of any other Philippine province.

The list of beneficiaries from such a declaration goes all the way to Washington.

The explorations are jointly conducted by the Royal Dutch Shell Group, the U.S.-based Chevron-Texaco, and the Philippine National Oil Company.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former chairman and chief executive officer of Halliburton Corporation, the world’s largest oil field services company. Halliburton has entered into contracts with Chevron, among other oil multinationals. Cheney even helped negotiate a Caspian Sea pipeline for Chevron in the 1990s. As of September 2003, Cheney continued to receive a deferred salary of $133,000 a year from Halliburton – apart from exercising $433,333 in stock options.

Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is a former member of Chevron’s board of directors. She became a director of the corporation in 1991. From 1999-2001, Rice chaired the public policy committee of the company’s board. Chevron and Texaco merged in 2001.

But the Camago-Malampaya oil and natural gas explorations are not the only ones in the Philippines that have Washington connections.

Last May, a consortium led by the local branch of a U.S.-based oil corporation began drilling for oil in Sulu, the southernmost province of the Philippines. The consortium members are: Unocal Sulu, Ltd., U.S.-based Amerada Hess Corp., Australian-based BHP Billiton; and local firms Sandakan Oil Corp., Basic Consolidated, Inc., Orental Petroleum and Mineral Corp., Philodrill Corp., Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corp., Anglo-Philippine Holdings Corp., PetroEnergy Resources Corp., South China Resources, Inc., Philex Mining Corp., and Universal Robina Corp.

Zalmay Khalilzad, special assistant to Bush and senior director for Gulf, Southern Asia and other regional issues of the U.S. Security Council, is a former consultant of Unocal. The company was also involved in the Afghan pipeline project.

Thomas Kean, chairman of Bush’s 9-11 Commission, is a director and shareholder of Amerada Hess Corp. Bulatlat

References:

1. Paul Anthony A. Isla, “Gov’t, BHP Billiton Tie Up on Sulu Oil Project,” The Manila Times, June 8, 2004

2. House Resolution No. 22, 13^th Congress, “Directing the House Committee on Energy to Conduct an Inquiry, in Aid of Legislation, into the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Decision to Allow a U.S.-Led Consortium to Begin Drilling Oil in the Philippines Particularly in Sulu and Make Initial Observations Regarding Its Implications on the National Economy, Given the Endless Series of Oil Price Increases and Other Effects of the Oil Deregulation Law and the Possible Violations of Constitutional Provisions on Economic Sovereignty and National Patrimony,” introduced by Reps. Crispin B. Beltran, Joel G. Virador, Satur C. Ocampo, Liza Largoza-Maza, Rafael V. Mariano, and Teodoro A. Casiño

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice

4. http://aztlan.net/oiltanker.htm

5. Christopher Bollyn, “Halliburton Creating Iraqi Secret Police At Your Expense,” http://www.americanfreepress.net/09_22_03/Halliburton_Creating/halliburton_creating.html

6. http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/drillbits/7_01/1.html

7. http://www.indymedia.uk/en/2001/09/12226.html

8. Michel Chossudovsky, “New Chairman of 911 Commission had Business Ties with Osama’s Brother-in-Law,” http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO212A.html

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