Fil-Ams slate protests vs China

Filipino-Americans are set to picket the consular offices of China in five US cities at noon on July 8 to protest that country’s construction of an oil rig in the Spratlys scheduled this month.

The demonstrations were called by US Pinoys for Good Governance (USP4GG), a national organization headed by Loida Nicolas-Lewis and Rodel Rodis that includes Filipino-American business, political and community leaders.

The protests will be held in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco and seek to expose China’s abrogation of its pledge to the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) to resolve sovereignty issues peacefully through negotiations, USP4GG said in a press release.

It said that under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (Unclos), a nation owns the oil, mineral and other resources within a 200-mile radius from its land mass.

With its superior military force, China appears determined to begin construction of a $30-billion oil rig this month approximately 125 miles from Palawan, well within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), USP4GG said.

On May 27, the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs conveyed its concerns to the Chinese government after the latter’s state media reported on Beijing’s planned installation of its most advanced oil rig in the West Philippine Sea in July.

According to the Xinhua report, “CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corp.) plans to invest 200 billion yuan ($30 billion) and drill 800 deep water wells, which they expect to have an output of 500 million barrels of oil by 2020.” Target production is approximately $50 billion per year.

“We call on global Filipinos and Philippine organizations throughout the world to stand up to the China bully and protest its impending invasion of the Philippines by demonstrating in front of consular offices of China throughout the world,” Lewis said.