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Leftwing activists accused Beijing of foreign intervention on RP territory bill

Leftwing activists belonging to Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) on Thursday accused the ruling Communist Party of China of foreign intervention when it installed the passage of House Bill 3216 defining the country’s territorial waters that include the Kalayaan Group of Islands and the Scarborough Shoal in the disputed Spratly.

“The move of Beijing is not only undiplomatic. It is actually a foreign intervention authored and executed by the ruling capitalist railroaders and bureaucrat capitalists in China who passed themselves off as communists. They are not communists because these are not the works of communists. The truth is these Beijing top guns are top money makers and exploiters based in Beijing, nothing more, nothing less” Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap said in a press statement.

Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco yesterday said Beijing’s apparent influence on the continued delay of the House of Representatives final approval of the bill was obvious. In a news forum, Cuenco chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs said Chinese Charge d’ Affaires Deng Xijun met with him in January to express China’s disagreement over the approval of HB 3216.

The Cebu lawmaker said he received a letter from the Philippine Embassy in China a copy of communication from the Chinese government dated December 2007. In the document, Beijing made reference to the controversial Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) among the Philippines, China and Vietnam, saying the proposed RP territory bill would affect the bilateral agreement involving joint exploration project in the disputed Spratly.

Pamalakaya’s Hicap believed Malacañang had a hand in the delay passage of the RP territory because President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wants first to eliminate controversial provisions in the bill that would displeasure China and that would affect the implementation of JMSU.

“The rubber stamp Congress under the leadership of House Speaker Prospero Nograles will water down HB 3216 to please China , and to make sure that the new bill will not run contrary to JMSU. We are talking here of $ 8 billion loan from China that promises huge kickbacks and fat commissions to Arroyo and company and this explains the current behavior of Malacañang and the congressmen loyal to President Arroyo,” Hicap added.

Pamalakaya said : “Beijing will tolerate the uncontrollable greed of President Arroyo because their corporate giants see huge return in investment which is 10 times up to 100 times bigger than their corporate funding for corruption.”

On Monday, Pamalakaya filed a 7-page diplomatic protest at the Consular office of the Chinese Embassy in Makati City.

“It seems to us that the Chinese government and its client monopolies in and out of China who want their capital to accumulate in accelerating proportions have seen a goldmine in President Arroyo’s uncontrollable greed, and are using this kind of rotten statesmanship and governance to further their economic and financial agenda in the Philippines,” the diplomatic protest letter said.

Pamalakaya asserted the JMSU will allow Chinese oil corporations to undertake offshore mining in Philippine claimed territories in the Spratly is a gross violation of our people’s sovereign rights and the country’s national patrimony.

The group likened to the joint agreement to an aggression and plunder by foreign power against a nation of people fighting against any kind of form of foreign invasion and exploitation, whether it is political, military or economic as in the case of the RP-China Spratly deal on offshore mining.

“The situation merits our active involvement as small fisherfolk of the Philippines, being the most affected group of people on this particular concern, and as patriotic citizens of this country desiring national emancipation and freedom from all kinds of foreign conquest,” Pamalakaya said.

Pamalakaya said the country’s claimed territories in the Spratly are part of the Philippines defined territorial waters according to the 1987 Constitution and as set by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea belong to the Filipino people, and not to the Arroyo ruling syndicate in Malacañang, and definitely not to the Chinese government and their corporate clients.

The group asserted that these territories, which China intends to explore for offshore mining activities are the breeding and spawning grounds of Philippine tuna and other marine species. These territories as well provide the passage for the entry and migration of migratory stocks in the Pacific Ocean. By nature and by design, our claimed territorial waters are part of the country’s EEZ.

“The JMSU which covers 142,886 square kilometers in South China Sea is tantamount to wholesale destruction not only of the Philippine claimed territories but almost the entire EEZ and continental shelf of the Philippine archipelago,” Pamalakaya said.

This not the first time Pamalakaya had filed a diplomatic protest against the Chinese government. Last September 2007, the group and staunch allies Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP-National Peasant Movement of the Philippines), Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (Union of Agricultural Workers) and Amihan-National Federation of Peasant Women filed a diplomatic protest in connection with the $ 329 million NBN deal and against the RP-China agreement consisting 18 agricultural and fisheries pacts that deemed to undermine our sovereign and patrimonial rights as rural-based producers all over the country. #

posted by: GerryCorpuz at 00:18 | link | comments |

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