exxon in sulu sea

the new news is exxon wants to explore for oil in the sulu sea. the sea is the space between the island of palawan and the islands of visayas in the philipines. it is where the tubbataha reefs are located and the main fishing grounds of palawenos. now exxon wants to try for oil in the area, and wishes to explore it. what are the implications if exxon succeeds in finding oil there?

1. we filipinos and we palawenos particularly wll be off limits there, as what shell did to malampaya natural gas rig in western palawan.

2. only the government and the biggest and most corrupt crooks in there will benefit from the extraction of oil, the taxes paid to the government wasted by the unscrupulous ones in the highest offices, as well as taken for personal requirements. we the small and ordinary citizens will be deprived of any benefits but praised to the highest heavens for our ‘natural riches’ and ‘incredible fortune’.

3. the americans will get the oil, the government crooks in malacanang the money, and we palawenos the heartaches and the possibilities of oil pollution. we eat the dirt they call cake.

4. exxon will get our oil so we can buy it from them at incredible prices with part of our money paid for the oil deposited in  malacanang. hahahahaha.

5. the tubbataha reefs will be raped, or will be declared outside of palawan’s territory. perhaps it will be declared to belong to the province of batanes…

6. the oil tax will not be given to palawan as the site will be declared by the highest office as in the national –not provincial– territory, as if the national territory is not composed of provincial territories which is composed of municipal territories and barangay territories. look what they did to malampaya natural gas…

7. we will be very proud to ‘own’ the oil so we can be happy not to receive any benefit from it… 

so what can we palawenos do? nothing. we are too diverse for unity; we are too poor to give it atention; we are too inured to government corruption as to be apathetic to anything; we are too uninformed as to be gullible. we can’t even give a damn about it.