American way

“America will poke its nose into regional issues but will be grudging in committing involvement in them.

“Since

the US official affirmed that the agreement may work, the then DFA head offered that a similar MoU be draf ted for the US, which of course was meant to chide the Americans.

When former foreign affairs secretary Teddy Boy Locsin explained the cold reality of geopolitics to Daily Tribune editors in the Straight Talk program, he said the actual situation would reveal that the United States is not the big protective brother that Filipinos expect it to be.

The West Philippine Sea standoff was the result of advice from Washington as it tried to mediate, telling both parties to stand down and later withdraw from the Scarborough Shoal.

Much later, during the less turbulent period of relations between both countries, an official of the US Department of Energy wanted to be made privy to the contents of a memorandum of understanding for joint exploration with China.

Since the US official affirmed that the agreement might work, the then-DFA head offered a similar MoU to be drafted for the US, which of course was meant to chide the Americans.

As expected, the US official declined the offer, frankly saying that the Philippine projects were too small for big American oil prospectors to bother with.

America will poke its nose into regional issues but will be grudging in committing involvement in it.

When China refused to pull out of Scarborough Shoal despite the involvement of the US in mediating the standoff, Locsin said US officials merely raised their hands and said, “Such is life.”

“When America does oil and gas, it will be in the scale of Kazakhstan. You know, America is the superpower of the planet. Maybe (for) the next 100,000 years. You can’t help it. When they do something, it’s big,” Locsin added.

Locsin, however, said Americans have ways of doing their allies political favors that usually do not apply to the Philippines.

“The US government will tell private oil firms, ‘hey, we’re gonna make real friends with these Filipinos, although there’s not much there we’re gonna be working together,’” Locsin said.

So, therefore, the US company may get tax incentives in favor of helping the Philippines.

“That’s how they play the game. You do a little oil and gas for diplomacy, and you’re rewarded in real money elsewhere” he revealed.

The thing about the Malampaya natural gas field is that two Western companies, Chevron and Shell, are involved but they sold out since the deposits are running out.

“We have a few more years. But if we can develop the oil and gas, then you can connect that to Malampaya, and it will be easier to get out,” Locsin said in describing the probable future of the country’s main energy find.

He said that taking out the oil in the WPS involving foreign companies would be harder now after the recent decision of the Supreme Court invalidating the Joint Marine Seismic Understanding of 2005.

“It was already in my memorandum of understanding that the ruling law is the Philippines while it provides a no-prejudice clause,” Locsin explained.

What the legal term means is that the actions taken by parties in the agreement can’t be cited as an argument in the WPS conflict.

“An extreme example is supposing that I’m a Chinese working on the oil rig and I’m so tired that I put on a Filipino uniform, you’re not going to take a picture and then go to court and say, see they accept our sovereignty,” Locsin said.

“Whatever happens on that rig will never be invoked for or against anyone’s claim,” he added.

What he related was the use of diplomatic savvy to prevent the landmines of the WPS conflict from intruding into the good relations built through the years.

President Bongbong Marcos has followed the tack of engaging China which is the most pragmatic and logical option to prevent a crisis from blowing across the country’s shores.

“All right, that’s just the most civilized thing to do. It came from them. But then, as I said, political power shifts even in China, and the hardliners sometimes would step in. And the soft liners on my side would sometimes step in, but they usually slap them away. So that’s really what it was, but it would have been a good partnership,” Locsin concluded.