KIKO MOVES FOR SPRATLYS DEAL INVESTIGATION

Senate Majority Leader and Independent senator Kiko Pangilinan today moved for a thorough investigation of the so-called Spratly Deal entered by government with Beijing following talks that link the transaction to loans and bribery including the controversial NBN ZTE deal.

"Now that we have established that questionable deals such as the ZTE can get past through the Chinese and Philippine governments, it is but proper to scrutinize all the transactions we have with them. Are the agreements legitimate? Do they serve the interests of our citizens? And most importantly, are they not mired by bribery and corruption?"Kiko asked.

The Philippines has entered into 31 agreements with China last year which allegedly aims to promote bilateral trade and development in the next 10 years. These include a signed agreement to jointly undertake seismic studies of the Spratleys and explore the territory for oil and natural gas. According to reports, the Chinese government committed $2 billion in ODA every year to the Republic of the Philippines until 2010 after the deal was signed.

"If the Spratlys deal is indeed tainted by anomaly then we must all be alarmed because then we will find that the Filipino people need to protect themselves from their very own government. Dapat nating malaman kung binebenta na ba tayo ng sarili nating gobyerno!" Kiko added.