MANILA, Philippines – From Tokyo, MVP speaks out.

While senators fought in Manila, businessman Manny V. Pangilinan — whose name was mentioned in the feud between Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Senator Antonio Trillanes IV — told Rappler Trillanes is wrong.

“Trillanes is lying,” Pangilinan said in a phone interview. “It’s all falsehood.”

Pangilinan, who is in Tokyo to bid to host next year’s FIBA Asia Basketball Championship, was cited by Senate President Enrile in what was allegedly Philipppine Ambassador to China Sonia Brady’s notes from her meeting with Trillanes in Beijing.

On Wednesday, September 19, Enrile read the notes to the public, after he was angered by Trillanes’ privilege speech accusing him of being a lackey of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and for his supposed non-democratic leadership style.

Brady’s notes allegedly said that Trillanes asked Pangilinan to tell his friend and former colleague, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, to keep quiet and not talk much about China.

Enrile said that, according to the notes, “Mr. Pangilinan and Secretary del Rosario wanted to create an event” and that Trillanes accused the two of “manipulating a war condition to divert attention from the Reed Bank.”

A Pangilinan-led group is currently exploring gas deposits at the Reed Bank, an energy bloc at the South China Sea that the giant neighbor is claiming as part of a territory that belongs to China. 

Citing the diplomat’s notes, Enrile alleged that Trillanes was of the impression that the gas deposit findings at Reed Bank were apparently not substantial. Thus, Pangilinan reportedly “asked the Chinese group” — through Del Rosario — “not to release the findings” because Pangilinan’s group needed “time to ensure that they can recover their investment.”

No China participation

The Chinese group that the notes appeared to refer to was Chinese state-owned oil firm China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), one of the world’s biggest and one of China’s most aggressive in the exploration of oil and other offshore resources.   

Pangilinan had admitted meeting with CNOOC officials in China last March. Malacañang, including the Department of Energy, was aware of it. At the time, this meeting was being considered as efforts to address the territorial dispute through a possible commercial deal. 

Upon hearing that Trillanes apparently told Brady that he and del Rosario asked CNOOC to keep quiet about unsubstantial findings on Recto Bank so they could recover investments, Pangilinan denied any developments in his work with CNOOC.

“CNOOC has no participation nor have they invested,” said Pangilinan.

He reiterated that he would not make a deal with CNOOC without the government’s approval, and added, “We’re not even there, we’re so far away we’re nowhere near that stage.”

Pangilinan, however, confirmed an ABS-CBN report that he was indeed asked by Trillanes to speak to Del Rosario to quiet down on China — a request Pangilinan said he conveyed to the foreign secretary.

When asked about the truth regarding Pangilinan by reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Trillanes kept mum. With a shrug, he said it was perhaps better to ask Enrile since it was he who mentioned Pangilinan in the first place.

Gas deposits

Initial estimates of the gas deposits at Recto Bank, located off the coast of Palawan, show that it may potentially hold a substantial gas deposit, even bigger than that at nearby Malampaya Natural Gas project, which currently supplies nearly half of the power requirements in Luzon areas.

The Philippine government asserted its sovereign right over the Reed Bank when it granted the right to explore the deposits there to a private consortium. 

Pangilinan chairs Forum Energy, a unit of his group’s extractive unit Philex Mining Corp and part of the consortium awarded by the government the right to explore the Reed Bank energy bloc.

Del Rosario, a former Philippine ambassador to the United States, used to sit on the board of Philex and Forum before he assumed the Foreign Affairs post.

For the Reed Bank project, Pangilinan had said they would need a foreign partner with the technology and expertise when they move on from exploration to the actual drilling and extraction activities.

However, he said the would defer to the Philippine government’s decision regarding a deal with any foreign partner, including CNOOC.

Previously, exploration activities at Reed Bank temporarily ceased due to security concerns. Chinese ships hovered in the Reed Bank area, starting the still on-going territorial dispute at the South China Sea. – Rappler.com