Don't mind the Chinese, just search for gas and oil in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

Cagayan de Oro 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez gave this piece of advice to the Marcos administration even as he noted the imminent depletion of the Malampaya gas field.

“Let’s do it, let’s look for gas and oil in the WPS, especially in Recto Bank off Palawan, which reportedly holds natural gas deposits that are bigger than those in Malampaya, which by the way is drying up in a few years,” he said in a statement Monday, Sept. 19.

Rodriguez, chairman of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments said the government should not think of what the Chinese would say and instead should be guided only by the national interest.

“They will always protest even if the exploration areas are not part of their territory. They are the interloper there,” he said.

Rodriguez urged the administration, through the Philippine National Oil Co.-Exploration Corp. (PNOC-EC), to implement the service contract to search for gas in Recto Bank, which is within the country’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone of EEZ.

“Recto Bank could potentially replace Malampaya, which supplies a large part of the fuel requirements of power plants energizing Metro Manila and Luzon,” he said.

He said natural gas is cheaper than other fuel and the closure of Malampaya in a few years, without a replacement, would mean higher electricity cost in Luzon.

Regional power China imposes a historic claim over much of the South China Sea, where where the WPS is located. Beijing's territorial claims reach up to within the declared jurisdiction of neighboring countries, causing conflict within the region.

The Mindanao lawmaker noted that the previous Duterte government had been trying since 2018 to iron out an exploration agreement with China that is compliant with the Philippine Constitution, however the former President terminated the talks before he stepped down last June.

“So let’s do it on our own. They should not dictate what we should do in our own territory. They should not force us to violate our own Constitution,” he said.

He said if some Chinese companies want to participate in oil and gas exploration, they could do so as sub-contractors.

Earlier, PNOC-EC president and chief executive officer Franz Alvarez, a former Palawan congressman, said his agency wants to make progress in some exploration areas in Isabela and Palawan.

However, those areas do not include Recto Bank, where Forum Energy, a company identified with businessman Manny Pangilinan, had been awarded a service contract.