RUSSIA is offering to sell portable nuclear power barges to the Philippines, Ambassador Carlos Sorreta said Tuesday, as President Rodrigo Duterte began his first official visit to Moscow.
“Russia is a major power in terms of energy [and]… can provide a whole range of nuclear energy [solutions]… they were able to develop commercially,” Sorreta said.
Efforts to start up the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant have met with strong resistance because of safety concerns, but Sorreta said the Russian portable plants were “quite safe.”
“We don’t have to build it. They have options for us,” he said. “If you want it, we’ll rent it… We will just buy power from it, put it on a barge offshore [and] run cables [to it]. If we don’t like it anymore, they’ll pull it out,” the ambassador said.
“It’s actually quite safe,” he added. “If you’re still afraid of it, you can have the barge far away.”
Sorreta said the Russians were keen to sell energy products to the region.
“We have not had as deep an exchange with Russia even though we have had 40 years of relations, but that’s going to change,” he said.
Duterte, who arrived Tuesday in Moscow for a four-day state visit, is expected to sign various agreements translating to billions of dollars in military-technological cooperation and deals in other fields, such as agriculture, energy, and trade.
“For me, one of the strongest manifestations of a successful Russian pivot to our region is [marked by] the good relations with the Philippines. We have the lowest level of relations in the whole of Southeast Asia. Within their metrics, [the Philippine pivot] marks that their “Turn East” policy is succeeding,” Sorreta told Filipino journalists in Moscow.
Sorreta also said Moscow’s “policy of noninterference” would be beneficial for the country.
“They just want to be friends for us. They don’t want to make enemies for us, or tell us not to be friends with others, unlike other countries,” he said.
The Foreign Affairs department said that while relations between Manila and Moscow remain at the “nascent stage,” this will change as a result of Duterte’s visit.
To date, no contract has been concluded between Russia and the Philippines on military-technological cooperation. The purchasing of munitions from the United States has become problematic because of delays and “conditions” imposed by the latter, Sorreta said.
Sorreta, a career diplomat who negotiated every military agreement with the US as former director for treaties and former Assistant Secretary for American Affairs at the DFA, said that compared to the United States, the Russian arms trade is purely commercial and has no strings attached.
“In terms of why Russian arms, why? Because there are no conditions. The arms will be sold and… they trust us to use [these] properly,” he said.
“I have always believed that our brave men and women in uniform should not be going into battle with arms attached to strings that wrangle all the way to Washington. All of our armaments coming from the United States [in the past] has been loaded with conditionalities,” he added.
In an interview with Russian journalists at Davao City, Duterte said that he’s open to seeking new defense alliances, including fresh arms deals with Russia and China as he vowed to cut off the arms trade between the Philippines and the United States.
Despite the country’s existing Mutual Defense Treaty with Washington, Duterte told Russian media that he’ll be making good of his promise to realign with Moscow and Beijing.
The President added that he is most interested in buying Russian helicopters and planes, as well as precision-guided weaponsto fight off the insurgency in the south.
“Russians don’t have limitations. If you want to buy an attack helicopter, they will train you then sell it to you. They will not say, they’ll sell it to you [then lay down conditions,]” Sorreta said.
Aside from helicopters, planes and precision guided weapons, Sorreta said that Russians can also provide equipment to replace the M4 rifles used by soldiers with the “same exact caliber but with a better construction.”
Duterte is scheduled to meet with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively to discuss issues concerning enhanced cooperation in political, military and economic spheres.
Also on Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said Manila and Moscow will sign a $2.5- billion agricultural trade agreement in which Russia will buy Filipino agricultural and fisheries products, while the Philippines will buy farm machinery, meat supply and other equipment needed to improve agricultural output.
Putin earlier announced that Russia was ready to buy $2.5 billion worth of Philippine fruits and fisheries products, Piñol said.
“Moscow has long expressed interest in trading with the Philippines extensively but there was not much progress in the negotiations,” Piñol said.
Sorreta said that Manila can take advantage of Russia’s trade opportunities particularly in agriculture and pharmaceuticals.
“One of our targets is agricultural products, Russia is a huge market for bananas, they love bananas. They import P1 billion worth of bananas every year from Ecuador which captures 95 percent of the banana market,” Sorreta told Filipino journalists in Moscow.
The diplomat said that among the agricultural products that can be strengthened for export to Russia are dried mangoes, desiccated coconut, coconut oil, coconut water, coconut sugar, and fish products including canned tuna, and fresh and frozen tuna.
To balance off the trade, Russia can sell to the region products such as oil and nuclear energy products.
For Filipino products to succeed in the Russian market, the government should concentrate on the promotion of our products and repackaging them using the Russian language, Sorreta said.