The Philippine Energy Department said it would no longer seek the renewal of the working visas of 16 Chinese nationals assigned to the Philippine grid. The reason given by Manila was that a senator raised the issue of security concerns.

That means by July, only two Chinese nationals would stay with National Grid Corporation of the Philippines which is 40 percent owned by State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), a state-owned company, reports Reuters.

Like Us on Facebook

Puzzled by the non-renewal of the 14 Chinese workers, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the SGCC made vital contributions to build the Philippine grid.

"(We) hope that the Philippine side can fairly and justly handle the relevant issue, earnestly uphold the legal rights of the Chinese company operating in the Philippines and create a good investment environment for foreign investors," Hong said.

The non-renewal leads to speculation that politics may have been taken into consideration given the heightened territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing over islands in the South China Sea, particularly in the light of publication of satellite images that China has massively built infrastructure in the islands that are geographically nearer to the Philippines than China.

But Philippine Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla clarified that the local staff of the grid has sufficiently learned all the necessary skills from the Chinese technicians. He also cited the difficulty in further renewing the visas of the Chinese workers.

Petilla also stated, "SGCC will still maintain its stock holdings in the power company though, which means that the company will still have two Chinese representatives in the Philippines on its board of directors," quotes Wantchinatimes.com.

This is not the first time that the Philippines has raised the issue of national security risk which resulted in the cancellation of visas and work permits of 28 SGCC technicians in the country on Nov. 6, 2012.

TagsChinese workers, Electricity, national security