Officials from the Philippines and China will meet in May to discuss the parameters and terms of reference of the two countries' possible joint oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the meeting will prepare Manila and Beijing for their upcoming plan as they build on the January state visit of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to China.
During the visit, Marcos and Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed "to bear in mind the spirit" of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development signed by two countries in 2018.
The understanding was first entered into by two countries in line with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea that advocated for means to cooperate with each other in maritime activities for significant contributions to peace, stability and development in the region.
By that time, Marcos believed that the continuing negotiation for the joint exploration between the two countries was important as the Philippines needs the resources it could get from the sea.
DFA Secretary Enrique Manalo "assured Senator Francis Tolentino that updates would be provided on this matter," DFA added in a statement on Tuesday.
In a recent interview with GMA News, Manalo disclosed that the Chinese side was "proposing that we begin talks again on oil and gas... in maybe around 6 weeks but... at a technical level."
But he added that "there’s no document yet" signed for this discussion.
"You will probably call it- well it's a meeting, you can say exploratory or scoping, or seeing the scope of the discussion and we'll see where it goes. But definitely we're open to talks but as I said, we'll always be guided by the requirements of the constitution," he said.