Rather than remaining fixated on PNOC-EC's decision not to match Udenna's offer to Chevron and Shell, we must instead look at the bigger picture.

There are crucial questions that are being overlooked, and we must not be remiss in asking them. These are: Why did Chevron sell their interest to begin with? Why did Shell choose not to match the offer of Udenna, and why did Shell decide to sell their shares as well?

Looking at the current overflow of reasoning that has been coming out of the woodwork, the argument has become that Shell, in making its business decision NOT to match Udenna's offer, was being PRUDENT. But in PNOC-EC's case, its business decision NOT to match Udenna's offer as well, was a FOOLISH one. Why is there a "double-standard" so to speak?

Of course, we cannot speak for Shell, but we could only deduce that they decided not to match Udenna based on economics and risk metrics.

On PNOC-EC's end, not only did they take into account economic and risk factors - they went further and dug deeper at their mandate.

Again, we must remember that PNOC-EC is not just the country's energy investment arm. Their mandate is to help the government achieve energy security, and foster the development of and sustain a conducive industry environment to help attract more investors into doing business in the Philippines. The government even held a series of domestic and international roadshows to aggressively promote energy investments, particularly in our downstream oil and gas industry sector, which we urgently need to meet our growing energy requirements.

For PNOC-EC to pounce on Chevron's shares actually runs counter to their mandate. If acquiring the Chevron shares was so financially lucrative, then why didn't Shell grab at them at the first opportunity?

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