Is MVP looking at Myanmar?

Manuel V. Pangilinan must be royally pissed these days. He not only publicly severed his ties with Ateneo, his alma mater over its position on mining and the RH bill but also threatened to leave the country and go back to Hong Kong, base of the MetroPac Group. Now I hear he is tired of the way government is treating him and is threatening to invest in Myanmar instead.

The threat to go move residence to Hong Kong was the offshoot of his becoming collateral damage in the fray between Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Senator Antonio Trillanes. I would react as badly too if I were in MVP’s shoes.

In the first place, MVP’s visit to China to talk to officials of China National Offshore Oil Co. (CNOOC) was just to get a feel of how the other side feels about the possibility of working together. I understand from knowledgeable sources other than MVP and his group that MVP didn’t even go as high up in the CNOOC hierarchy to move the idea forward.

I believe MVP that he went there with the knowledge of our own energy officials because I imagine they too want to know what our options are. There are things a private sector person like MVP can do that government officials cannot do. 

But even before the Enrile-Trillanes thing erupted, MVP was getting a little frustrated about how he is being treated by government. I had written about that way back in March 30, this year in a column entitled: Is the Palace allergic to MVP? I reread that column and nothing much has changed other than the approval of the NLEX-SLEX connector road but yet to face Swiss challenge.

Still bothering MVP’s group is their inability to finally consummate a done deal like the operations and maintenance of the SCTEX. It will be recalled that last year, BCDA re-negotiated an O and M deal with MVP’s MetroPac group on SCTEX that would link it smoothly with NLEX. When the contract came up for final signature in Malacañang, it was sent back to BCDA with the instruction to negotiate further.

No one wants to talk officially on the matter but my sources told me MetroPac has already agreed to a 30-percent share for the Government, from 20 %. Government still wants a total JICA debt guarantee. The amount involved is not that big but the idea of transferring debt burden is contentious.

The government may yet over extend its hand on this. MetroPac assumes market risk on SCTEX which I think has increased. The traffic volume in SCTEX has decreased with the newly refurbished Olongapo-Gapan highway. Motorists save on toll by using the free highway and only enter SCTEX in Dinalupihan.

A MetroPac official told me that the only reason they are still pursuing the O and M contract is a matter of corporate pride. They just don’t want it said they cannot close a done deal with a P-Noy led government. It would be bad for them, bad for government.

But money allocated for pending MetroPac projects cannot be idle for much longer. Time, after all is money. If we don’t want the MetroPac investments, say so and not keep MVP hanging.

Maybe it is a good idea for MetroPac to propose a similar major project in Myanmar so we can compare how responsive the Myanmar government is compared to ours. I just saw a clip of Aung San Suu Kyi delivering a speech seeking investments before an international group. The united stand that image gives should help Myanmar to start beating us in the quest for FDI in the months to come.

It is not enough for Palace Spokesperson Abi Valte to say Malacañang wants MVP to stay here. As Eliza Doolittle told her love sick suitor in My Fair Lady: don’t talk of love… show me.

This administration will have to show it appreciates entrepreneurs like MVP and want them to stay and invest in much needed infrastructure. If we can’t treat MVP right, what potential foreign investor would be stupid enough to think he can do better?

Diplomacy

The Department of Foreign Affairs is the biggest loser in this vicious mess unleashed by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Senator Antonio Trillanes. Without touching on who is right and who is wrong, our diplomats lost a great deal of credibility with the leak of clearly marked SECRET documents.

The spectacle of JPE brandishing documents marked SECRET in big bold red letters must have been a shock to diplomats watching the early morning show. Countries with serious issues with us, like China, must be particularly concerned that they cannot talk to us without assuming that our DFA is the local equivalent of Wikileaks.

There is nowhere else JPE could have obtained those SECRET documents but from DFA. I know those document cover sheets marked SECRET from the days I used to cover DFA. We respected the implications and the reasons why these are so marked even if we sometimes question the validity of the secret classification.

What makes it damaging for DFA’s credibility is the thought that our foreign service is a place where officials violate their own secrecy rules to hit back at perceived opponents. Obviously, whoever leaked that so called Brady Notes must be high enough to have access to the document. Obviously too, he or she has an axe to grind… get back at a Senator trespassing into their turf.

I can understand why a DFA bureaucrat would think Trillanes did a grievous transgression even if with the consent of the Chief Executive. Psychologically, the DFA bureaucrats should feel threatened that Malacanang found it necessary to open backdoor channels to China. P-Noy himself said he had to do it because the main diplomatic channel closed down or was otherwise ineffective.

On the other hand, I find it difficult to understand how JPE can wave documents clearly marked SECRET on live television, read from it and say doing so does not harm national security. If it was declassified beforehand, why was the cover sheet emblazoned with SECRET in big bold red letters still attached to the Brady Notes when JPE was reading from it in Karen Davila’s show? What is going on with our government? Have our officials gone mad?

A lawyer reacting to the JPE interview sent a comment to a Facebook post that a crime has actually been committed on national TV: “Revelation of secrets, which is punishable by prison correctional and perpetual disqualification from public office under Article 229 of the Revised Penal Code. The DoJ should promptly file a case against him to set a public example.” Miriam is right to call on JPE to shut up na.

There are times when a brave person may decide to openly defy the secrecy law if he feels it is in the national interest to do so. Ninoy Aquino did that when he exposed Oplan Sagittarius which was the Marcos plan to declare martial law. That however didn’t involve diplomatic negotiations. National interest was not compromised, only the dictatorial interest of Mr Marcos.

Sending Mar Roxas to China to meet with Xi Jinping is a good way of sending a message to China that these recent embarrassing diplomatic gaffes shouldn’t stand in the way of better ties between us. Mar is high enough in the local hierarchy and as President of the ruling Liberal Party has enough standing to be credible. Mar is also good at this, having negotiated a serious diplomatic problem with Taipei at the start of P-Noy’s watch.

The Foreign Secretary has lost his credibility with China and I doubt if he will ever be effective again in dealing with our powerful neighbor. Using back channels is a legitimate diplomatic means to reach out to China under the circumstances.

But it would have been better if the back channel envoy selected has long standing ties with officials in the other country. I would have thought that businessman Carlos Chan who has more than a dozen factories in China and well regarded by senior officials there or Chito Sta Romana who has lived there for more than three decades would have been better than Sen. Trillanes and likely to be more circumspect. Both Chan and Sta Romana also speak fluent Mandarin which prevents problems with translations.

There are plenty of lessons in this mess and I only hope we learn them. Two years in power and it still seems we have a Student Council running our government.

Feet

Here’s an amusing one liner some people in the news ought to heed.

Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you don’t have a leg to stand on.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco