MANILA, Philippines -- Pangasinan Representative Jose de Venecia has repeatedly denied that the exploration agreement he helped pursue with China was tied to the release of Chinese loans to the Philippines.

?No, zero,? said the ousted Speaker of the House, reiterating a statement he had earlier issued that said the agreement had turned ?an area of potential conflict into a zone of peace and development.?

His spokesperson, Noel Albano, also said late last month that the agreement was ?not tied to anything, not to any loan.?

?We are not giving up any territory here,? Albano quoted De Venecia as saying. ?What we have is a dignified settlement and an honorable peace -- an agreement for a joint seismic exploration to determine if there are drillable resources in the area.?

After his official visit to Beijing in January, De Venecia said the tripartite venture in the disputed zone should be ?expedited and completed? to pave the way for exploratory oil drilling by the national oil companies of the Philippines, China and Vietnam.

?With the price of crude hitting the roof, we should have oil in our front yard and back yard,? De Venecia said in a statement issued after his meeting with Wu Bangguo, chair of the National People?s Congress at the Great Hall of the People.

De Venecia said China, the Philippines and Vietnam had reached a ?meaningful seismic agreement? enabling their respective national oil companies to explore jointly for hydrocarbon resources in the contested area.

Albano said the arrangement was like the oil exploration being conducted by several European nations -- among them England, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany -- in the North Sea without any partition.