IN a recent news article by Meg J. Adonis published in the business section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Monday, Sept. 25, 2023), the president of the Philippine National Oil Company-Exploration Corporation or PNOC-EC, Franz Josef George Alvarez, was quoted as saying at a Senate hearing that the Malampaya consortium, of which PNOC-EC has a 10% participating interest, has committed to drill two additional wells in 2025. He also made the surprising assessment that the probability of success was around 80%.
This means that there is a good prospect of finding additional gas reserves. In fact, prospects are excellent, coming from an expert.
Alvarez is asking for a budget of two billion pesos or $35 million as share of PNOC-EC in the drilling project of the consortium.
First, the question begs to be asked:
If the prospects are so good, why didn’t the PNOC-EC choose to take over when Chevron and Shell sold their 45% shares to Dennis Uy’s Udenna and Enrique Razon’s Prime Infra?
At the time, the PNOC-EC claimed a dearth of technical expertise and lack of funding.
Apparently, these were simply excuses in support of the Department of Energy and Secretary Raphael Lotilla’s desire to grant these two privately owned presidential crony companies the rights to the Malampaya gas field.
In addition, Secretary Lotilla is the chairman of the PNOC-EC and should have known better.
The PNOC-EC has been actively engaged in oil exploration and production business for 40 years and is certainly technically qualified.
Udenna and Prime Infra had no experience at all and are in fact technically unqualified.
As for PNOC-EC’s claim of lack of funding, both Udenna and Prime Infra took out loans to buy the Chevron and Shell shares.
The PNOC-EC, as a legitimate government entity, was more than capable of getting loans itself with its strong credibility of proven and solid expertise in the field.
Besides, Malampaya belongs to the Filipino people and the government. The PNOC-EC could have taken over Chevron’s and Shell’s participating interests without having to pay them any money.
We, the National Youth Movement for the West Philippine Sea, believe that the Filipino people were swindled off the wealth of Malampaya to benefit two undeserving and unqualified private companies.
Now, the president of the PNOC-EC has the audacity to ask the Senate for a two-billion-peso budget to pay for its share in drilling these two wells.
Malampaya was yours for the taking, Mr. Alvarez! You chose to give it away, and now you’re admitting the prospects have an 80% success rate!
Why did you give up the best business prospect for the PNOC-EC? President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has extended the Malampaya service contract supposedly in exchange for this two-well commitment.
That’s adding insult to injury.
We not only gave up Malampaya, we assured Dennis Uy and Ricky Razon one hundred million pesos ($1.75 million) a day in profits (which belong to the Filipino people). We extended their contract by another 15 years, and they are now asking for more money to spend on additional wells!
The Filipino people own Malampaya, Mr. Alvarez! And that is why you should not have to pay for anything! The PNOC-EC’s mandate was to explore, discover, and develop our oil resources, a mandate you did not fulfill.
Instead, you and Lotilla have become mere lackeys to the oligarchs who illegally obtained Malampaya and are now enjoying its wealth at the expense of the Filipino people.
We urgently appeal to Philippine lawmakers not to approve the request of PNOC-EC’s proposed budgetary allocation of two billion pesos, but instead order the Department of Energy and PNOC- EC to recover the interests relinquished by Chevron and Shell that were illegally transferred to Dennis Uy and Enrique Razon, respectively.
Uy and Razon have profited at least 75 billion pesos ($1.3 billion) since March 2020 — 75 billion pesos that rightfully belong to the government and the Filipino people!
Guam-CNMI resident Dr. Celia Lamkin is the global chair and founder of the National Youth Movement for the West Philippine Sea.
