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 Editorials | Issues | May 2008 
PEMEX Reform Debate Entrenched in Dogma
 Diego Cevallos - Inter Press Service
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Mexico City - The debate in the Mexican Congress over the government’s proposals to reform the state oil company, PEMEX, has placed the oft- amended constitution of 1917 and the elusive concepts of nationalism and sovereignty squarely at the centre of the controversy.
Leftwing opposition politicians and a number of academics say that the constitution, promulgated after a revolution that cost one million lives, is immutable, and contains sacred principles that are frankly opposed to the government’s plans for PEMEX, which in their view amount to privatisation and selling out the national interest.
However, according to other observers, there is no conflict between the reform proposals and the constitution, and they suggest that this is the right time to divest the constitution of its near sacred status and to think pragmatically about the problems facing the country’s energy industry.
These people point out that the constitution has been amended 473 times, and that the articles referring to energy resources, which say that the state is the sole owner of the country’s oil and its associated industries, have themselves been modified 16 times.
Several academics and writers suggest studying the patterns of oil production in other countries to see what can be learned from them. But the leftwing opposition, the second largest bloc in Congress, reply that the case of Mexico is unique and that it must find its own model, with the state exercising permanent control over the oil industry.
The focus of the debates are reform proposals for five different legal provisions that affect PEMEX’s operations, which were presented in early April by President Felipe Calderón with the aim of facilitating private sector participation in the oil industry. This has in fact existed for several decades, but is tightly regulated.
PEMEX, which was nationalised in 1938, is in serious financial difficulties and in urgent need of modernisation and technological upgrading. In addition, it suffers from high levels of corruption.
Furthermore, Mexico’s proven crude reserves will barely last another nine years, and no alternative source of income has been proposed, by either the government or the opposition, to replace state revenue from PEMEX, which currently finances 40 percent of the national budget.
"We have an almost psychiatric problem about oil and PEMEX. I don’t want to interfere with anyone’s feelings about oil, but it’s time we defied the principles that our oil taboos have thrust upon us, because they’re not realistic," and looked for practical alternatives for PEMEX, writer Héctor Aguilar Camín said in one of the debates.
José Ortiz Pinchetti, a former legislator and a close associate of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former presidential candidate for the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said that history could not be ignored.
"We cannot ignore our traditions, we cannot ignore the pact enshrined in the constitution, we are not a nation of universal citizens," such as might change PEMEX in the way the government wants, he said.
Carlos Elizondo, an academic at the Centre for Economics Research and Teaching (CIDE), said lawmakers should not blinker themselves with legal considerations when discussing the reforms that PEMEX requires.
If laws or the constitution have to be changed in order for the company to become more profitable and efficient, this should be done, as has already happened in the past, he said.
"If we democratically agree on goals that require a constitutional change, we should go ahead and do it. The constitution is what we decide, not the product of a divine act. To treat the text of the constitution as if it were sacred is to renounce our democratic sovereignty and to impose on ourselves the restrictions of a dogmatic society," he said.
Elizondo’s position, which included a call to explore the experiences of other countries’ oil industries, especially that of Brazil and its state oil giant Petrobras, and if necessary to adapt some of these for use in Mexico, triggered acrimonious debate.
Ortiz Pinchetti accused Elizondo of regarding the constitution as a rag "that can be put on or taken off" at will, whereas in his own view it is the "foundational pact that has kept us united."
However, only 33 percent of the 136 articles in the 1917 constitution remain as they were originally written.
Left-leaning economist David Ibarra, a former finance minister in the 1970s, said that it was impossible for PEMEX to learn anything from Petrobras’ experience, as the company belongs to another country, where the situation is completely different.
We have to "salvage a company (PEMEX) not in the financial sense, but as a living part of the Mexican people’s struggle for liberation and the freedom to decide their common destiny," Ibarra said.
Historian Lorenzo Meyer, a professor at the Colegio de Mexico, one of the country’s most prestigious academic institutions, said that, uniquely in the world, Mexican nationalism is inextricably intertwined with the country’s oil.
Arguing that President Calderón’s proposals would lead to the de facto privatisation of PEMEX, Meyer stated that "Mexico needs nationalism, real nationalism, and oil has the potential to make this company successful again, and make it the pride of our collective imagination."
The 21 congressional debates on PEMEX scheduled from May 13 to Jul. 15 are intended to determine whether the executive branch’s proposals are appropriate, constitutional and viable, after which decisions will be made to approve, amend or discard them, or draft alternative proposals.
The discussions in the legislature are being broadcast on a state television channel, and lawmakers are presenting this as an exercise aimed at involving the public and taking their views into account. To this end, they have put in place mechanisms to receive messages and letters on the topic from ordinary citizens.
But viewer ratings for the televised debate are extremely low, and the opinions and questions mailed to legislators have been very few for a country with over 104 million people.
While discussions are essential in a democracy, the fact is that "in the end the legislators will decide on any legal changes to PEMEX, and so far they have not budged from their positions, although they have heard many different valid arguments in the debates," Aroldo Romero, a political scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), told IPS.
"Debating oil issues is not like solving a mathematical problem, where everyone arrives at the same answer. In our case it is impossible to reach a consensus, which means it appears ever less likely that a truly radical reform of the oil industry will be agreed," he said.
At the debate where the constitutionality of Calderón’s proposals to reform PEMEX was examined, six lawyers spoke on the subject. Three of them said the reforms clearly violated the constitution, while the other three said they did not.
"They run counter to the constitution," said a former member of the Supreme Court, Juventino Castro.
"The initiatives basically respect the constitution," countered the head of the Institute of Legal Research at UNAM, Héctor Fix.
According to writer Aguilar Camín, if the only thing that matters in deciding the future of PEMEX is defending and fulfilling the constitution as it stands, "we can begin right now to cancel all the unconstitutional contracts that PEMEX has signed with private firms" since 1938, that are still in force.
To modernise the oil industry, the constitution should be changed if necessary, and legislators should not feel tied to an old constitution that does not reflect 21st century reality, said Aguilar Camín, the author of journalistic and historical books, novels and articles in various news media.
"If we took a cool-headed look at the problems facing the company and the oil industry, we might be able to find more effective solutions. But we are building such a nationalistic mythology around oil that we can’t even think freely about it," he said. |
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