Insurance for Solar 1 hits snag (aka Aray Guimaras part 2)

OWNERS of the M/T Solar 1 oil tanker could face problems in paying off claimants of the Guimaras oil spill due to possible rejection of their insurance claims, TV Patrol World reported Wednesday.

Stronghold Insurance Company Inc. (SICI) cancelled the hull and machineries insurance policy of Solar 1 after the tanker’s owners, Sunshine Maritime Development Corp. (SMDC), failed to settle the premium.

Another insurance firm based in Luxembourg could also refuse insurance worth $300 million after the ship’s owners allowed an unlicensed captain to man the vessel.

Solar 1, carrying at least two million liters of oil, sank off Guimaras Islands last August 11. Officials said the oil spill had polluted at least 220 kilometers of coastline, fishing grounds, marine reserves and tourist spots.

Hundreds of fishermen in the island were deprived of their livelihood because of the oil spill and hundreds of Guimaras residents were hauled to evacuation centers to avoid the toxic hazards brought by the spilled oil.

(Click Insurance snag, Sept. 6, 2006, for the full story.)

Worst of the oil spill is behind us, says Petron exec

• But Negros says removal of tanker ‘unconditional’

By Carla Gomez

BACOLOD CITY – (UPDATE) A top official of Petron Corp. on Wednesday said the company believed the worst part of the Visayas oil spill was over.

“We feel the worst is behind us,” said Jose Campos, Petron vice president for marketing, in a press conference here. (Site manager: See GMA story below. Why is she echoing the same line? Your guess is as good as mine. Wink!)

But an environmentalist who attended the press conference disputed Campos’ claims, saying the environmental disaster could not be considered over as long as the sunken M/T Solar I remained at the bottom of the sea.

The Negros Occidental Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) and the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council (PDCC) shared this view, passing a resolution Tuesday stressing their demand for the removal of the tanker and its cargo is unconditional.

Governor Joseph Marañon and Negros Occidental mayors at the PPOC and PDCC meeting said that the tanker and the oil would continue to be a “Sword of Damocles” hanging over Western Visayas.

Marañon said a copy of the resolution would be sent to President Macapagal Arroyo and the National Disaster Coordinating Council.

(Click Remove tanker for the full story.)

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FINALLY Joey Campos has decided to face the media. Petron executives probably realized that they were shooting themselves in the foot by having their usual spokeswoman Virginia Ruivivar doing the talking. (But try not to blame her. Her script was prepared by her bosses and the firm’s legal eagles I think. Poor girl.)

Campos sounds like he knows what he’s talking about and explains the Petron side well. Unfortunately, he isn’t telling the truth either, as can be gleaned from the reports by provincial papers (which sadly, are no longer being picked up by their desk editors here in Manila. I wonder why.) Even the Coast Guard says the oil is still leaking from the tanker. So how can the “worst of the oil spill” be behind us Joey?

Cleanup isn’t finished. Oil spill is on its way to Negros Occidental and a shift in the waves and the wind will bring it to the Sulu Sea where more marine resources will be affected. Livelihoods of the fisherfolk and seaweed farmers have yet to be restored. The surroundings of Guimaras have to be rehabilitated. Worst is over? Really now.

I saw Joey Campos on Dong Puno’s show Viewpoint today, with some forgettable DOST official talking about oil-eating microbes who couldn’t even say when the government will release these friendly bacteria. Slow, slow, response as usual. My question was, “Is Petron really trying to contain the oil spill, or the news coverage? Why is its PR and Ad agencies distributing payola to local journalists?” Is it because Petron can’t bear to read and hear the truth? Darn. Dong didn’t read my comment.

Btw, for those wondering about the supposed junket Petron’s bright PR gals and guys were trying to hatch for Iloilo reporters today to get them away from covering the presidentita in Guimaras, I hear that no one joined. Good for you guys! Don’t let these Petron lackeys underestimate your honesty and commitment to the truth.

Meanwhile, according to Joey Campos’ friend who texted me after Dong’s show, “He is not as stupid as he projects. he lways tells me dat wen der r 1,001 opinions invited, jst act stupid.” Aha! your secret’s out Joey.

Arroyo says oil spill contained; cadets tapped for cleanup

•‘Oil was leaking before tanker sank’ — Petron inspectors

IN a bid to restore the oil-ravaged beaches of Guimaras to its former splendor, government will tap thousands of cadets of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) and other college students for the manual cleanup of the Guimaras oil spill.

This was announced Wednesday by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she visited oil spill-ravaged sites in Guimaras where she also said that the damage to the area has been contained.

The remarks came a day after the United Nations Development Program representative warned that manual cleanup expose workers to health risks.

Meanwhile, inspectors contracted by Petron Corporation admitted that they observed bunker fuel leaking from the M/T Solar I before the vessel sank off Guimaras Issland, causing caused one of the worst oil spills in Philippine history.

Anthony Val Fallet of the Jade Sea-Land Services and Raul Melaya of the Toplis Marine Philippines Inc. made the statement in separate affidavits submitted to the Special Board of Marine Inquiry (SBMI) on Wednesday.

“I noticed that there was already oil spillage from the compartment,” Fallet said without elaborating.

“We noticed that there was already oil leaking from the vessel but we could not determine the source of the leak,” Melaya said.

The two did not elaborate on the leak when they testified before the SBMI Wednesday afternoon. (With Joel Guinto, PDI)

(For the full stories, click GMA lies and Petron inspectors, Sept. 6, 2006.)

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YEAH oil spill contained! Bulí mo ‘day!

So why are Negrenses scared for their beach resorts? Oil spill has already reached the coast of coast of Binalbagan, Negros Occidental, going to the south where about 15 dive spots are located as well as a marine sanctuary. Doesn’t this woman even look at the satellite images? Or are her advisers also keeping the real truth from her?

Did she walk again along the beach in her summer outfit? What beach resort did she go to? The one which wasn’t tainted by the spill in the first place. Boy her lies just keep getting bigger and bigger don’t they?

NDCC still has no estimate for Guimaras cleanup

• Folk showing ‘spill-related symptoms’

By Veronica Uy, Hazel P. Villa

ALMOST four weeks after the M/T Solar I sank on August 11, releasing more than a million of its 2.1-million liter load of bunker fuel into the sea, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) still does not have an estimate for the cost of cleaning up the oil spill in Guimaras province.

This was learned by the Senate Tuesday even as the Western Visayas Regional Disaster Coordinating Council (RDCC) and health department office reported that hundreds of people in Guimaras and in Iloilo exposed to the bunker fuel the Solar I are showing “oil spill-related diseases or symptoms.”

At the Senate hearing on the 46.42-billion-peso supplemental budget, defense undersecretary Cecilio Lorenzo asked that he be allowed to return with the figures needed for the cleanup.

The lack of justification for the two-billion-peso calamity fund appropriation, which would also cover the evacuation of residents around Mayon Volcano and Filipinos in Lebanon, angered Senator Juan Ponce-Enrile.

Asking for a breakdown of the two billion pesos, Enrile asked if the amount would be spent on personnel services, freight, or transportation.

“If you have a notional amount, you must also have a notional usage of the amount,” he said.

The Philippine Coast Guard, which is part of the clean-up team, is asking for 118 million pesos for “stockpiling of equipment” to mop up one of the worst oil spills in the country.

(Click Cleanup, Sept. 6, 2006, for the full story.)

Why is WWF sounding like the gov’t? (aka the ties that bind part 2)

IF you read Rina Jimenez’s column today, or checked out the latest posting on Save Guimaras, you will wonder why it seems that LORY TAN, president of World Wildlife Fund Phils., is starting to sound like a Petron and GMA apologist.

First off, Lory Tan has been appointed by his presidentita to her Task Force Guimaras and oversee efforts to help the island province get back on its feet. So compared to Greenpeace’s fire and rhetorics on the oil spill issue, WWF Philippines has been quite sober.

Now I don’t want to question the motives of Lory Tan, who I’ve heard, is really a good man at heart. But the general perception is, he is now towing the government and Petron’s line in this very important issue.

But this should not really be a surprise, my friends, because if you check out the web site of WWF Phils., you will find that on its Board of Trustees, is PAUL G. DOMINGUEZ, presidential adviser for Mindanao. What’s more, Mr. Dominguez’s wife is Rosie Alcantara. And you guessed it! she is the sister of Nick Alcantara of Petron, and Tommy Alcantara, one of the biggest fundraisers of the presidentita. And Lory, is the son of Bienvenido Tan, a close friend and colleague of the Dominguezes. (Sorry, I’ve already removed WWF from my blogroll. Click here to know the other trustees.)

I’ve been quite silent on this issue for a while since I wanted WWF to go and do its work its own way. And I’ve personally supported WWF in its campaigns by making donations. But people are asking about it, people are questioning. Then I received an email from a photographer who strings for SIPA who said that she had asked Lory Tan if she could go with them to Guimaras to document the oil spill. Well Mr. Tan said his group wasn’t interested and said “they were relying on satellite photos to track the spill.”

Perhaps this revelation is a blessing in disguise. It’s sad I know. But really we cannot rely on arm-chair environmentalists to help us in this very important issue. We can only rely on ourselves to do the job. We inform the public about the truth (not GMA’s version), and get them to assist the Guimarasnons in their own little way.

That’s why I admire groups like Save Guimaras and Save our Seas, as well as the Visayas Sea Squadron, who have done more than these armchair environmentalists, in channeling assistance to Guimaras. They don’t need 8-week studies or conferences and whatnot to know that Guimaras needs help now.

This island province needs more action, less habla.

A PR disaster – among other things

AT LARGE
By Rina Jimenez-David

IT WAS perhaps the worst PR disaster any company had to confront. When the tanker Solar 1 sank off the coast of Guimaras last Aug. 11, Petron Corp. management was oblivious to the fact that thousands of liters of their bunker fuel was seeping out of the sunken ship and washing onto the shoreline of Guimaras and nearby areas.

“We learned about it only on Saturday (Aug. 12) noon,” remembers Petron public relations head Virginia Ruivivar, after the survivors of the wreck had been rescued. “The reason we could not issue any statement right off was that we needed to assess the extent of the damage,” she adds, admitting that in the first few days of the crisis, they didn’t realize how “big” it would become – in political terms, environmental damage, media exposure and corporate image.

But in the weeks that followed, Ruivivar and the rest of the team handling the fallout from the Guimaras disaster would realize the full extent of what they were dealing with. For weeks, the oil spill was the banner story in most newspapers and remains front-page material today. It also led the evening newscasts, and though it is no longer headline material, the impact of the oil spill has spawned nightly news reports and human-interest stories.

Ruivivar came for particularly blistering criticism after she publicly stated that Petron has neither a legal nor a contractual liability for the damage caused by the oil spill, although she did try to soften the statement by adding that the company nonetheless felt a “moral obligation” to help with the cleanup and assist the affected communities recover from the disaster, including long-term rehabilitation.

(For the entire piece, click Rina, Sept. 6, 2006.)

‘The biggest whitewash in the nation’s history’

Keep oil spill cases ‘airtight,’ Arroyo orders
• But fisherfolk score DoJ decision

By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez, Nonoy Espina
Reporter

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Wednesday said she wants an “airtight” case against those found liable for the Visayas oil spill even as she gave assurances the disaster has been contained and government efforts are now geared towards bringing Guimaras province back its old glory.

“We are here again today this time to make this pledge: Guimaras will be great again,” she said on her third visit to the island province, the hardest hit by the oil spill, to preside over a meeting of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC). Arroyo said she has signed an executive order creating the Metro Iloilo Guimaras Development Council to deal with the rehabilitation of affected areas.

“I am directing Secretary Gonzales (and) the DoJ to ensure an airtight case against those found liable for violations of law,” Arroyo said. “No one culpable in this national tragedy shall walk away scot-free.”

But a leftist fisherfolk alliance claimed this was what the DoJ was doing when it cleared Petron on Tuesday of criminal liability for the oil spill.

Fernando Hicap, chairman of the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), said it was “foul play” for the DoJ to “set the stage for Petron’s walk-in-the park escape” while letting “powerless people like the captain and crewmembers of M/T Solar I” take the rap.

Undersecretary Ernesto Pineda, chair of a DoJ fact-finding body looking into who can be held liable for the oil spill, said on Tuesday that Petron could not be charged criminally since it did not own the M/T Solar I. He did say the oil firm, in which the government and Saudi Aramco own 40 percent each, could be civilly liable for negligence.

“This is a preview,” Hicap said of what he said could be the “biggest whitewash in the nation’s history.”

(For the full story, click Whitewash, Sept. 6, 2006.)

Private inspection firm: MT Solar I ’structurally fit’

By AMITA LEGASPI, GMANews.TV

REPRESENTATIVES of the international service management company that inspected the ill-fated oil tanker MT Solar I on Wednesday testified that the vessel passed all its standards for seaworthiness earlier this year.

Officials of France-based Bureau Veritas (BV) made the statement after finally making an appearance before the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI) investigating the massive oil spill in central Philippines.

“Based on last attendance on board and all inspection recorded from January to April 2006, in behalf of BV, the vessel (was) structurally fit,” said Felicito Quimpo, BV senior surveyor.

In his testimony, Quimpo noted that the MT Solar I was given a class symbol of 1 or I, which means the vessel fully complied with all BR requirements during the inspection.

According to its web site, Bureau Veritas specializes in quality, health, safety and environment management. It utilizes a “network that covers 140 countries and includes 600 offices and laboratories.”

The BMI last Monday expected Bureau Veritas officials to appear at the investigation, but the latter failed to do so.

(For the full story, click GMA TV, Sept. 6, 2006.)

Oil spill sickens 707

By DAVID ISRAEL SINAY
Panay News, Sept. 6, 2006

ILOILO City – The Regional Disaster Coordinating Council (RDCC) reported a total of 707 persons with oil spill related diseases / symptoms.

Twenty-five days after M/T Solar 1 sank in the Panay Gulf resulting in the spillage of more than 300,000 liters of bunker fuel contaminating the air, shorelines and the sea, RDCC reported 677 sick persons in Guimaras and 30 in Iloilo province.

Department of Health (DOH) Regional Director Lydia Depra-Ramos disclosed that these were caused by inhalation of fumes (of the bunker fuel on the oil slick that reached the shores of affected coastal barangays), direct contact with the oil slick /bunker fuel, gastro-intestinal symptoms, pneumonitis, and that the odor (of the bunker fuel) aggravates the condition of asthmatic residents.

As of yesterday, the RDCC reported that persons with oil spill-related symptoms came from Nueva Valencia, Sibunag and San Lorenzo towns in Guimaras; others came from Ajuy and Concepcion towns in the province of Iloilo.

Aside from this, the Guimaras Provincial Hospital has diagnosed (from August 16 to 30) cases of chemical pneumonitis, rhinitis, and asthma due to working directly at the oil spill affected area, and inahaltion of bunker oil fumes; acute gastritis and gastroenteritis due to intake of bunker oil contaminated fish; and contact dermatitis due to contact with bunker oil while on sea shore.

According to Ramos evacuation of affected residents is still ongoing.

In Guimaras, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (Region 6) declared the fish caught from the Guimaras Strait and Panay Gulf, safe to eat.

According to Drusila Ong, regional director, samples of almost 20 species of fish caught from the Iloilo- Guimaras Strait were analyzed using the sensory and gas chromatography method. It was found out that the fishes were not hazardous to eat.

Ong said the method they used was introduced by the Management of Seafood Safety of the Response and Restoration Division of the Nation Oceanic Atmosphere Administration, USA Department of Commerce.

The fish examined were negative of bunker oil, Ong said. “It means that they are all safe to eat,” she stressed.

Ong said fish samples like sap-sap, lapu-lapu and kasag among others were taken from fish landing sites of every town of Iloilo.

Ong said shells from shorelines contaminated with the bunker oil are the ones very dangerous to human health and thus must not be eaten. With Montesa Griño

Petron-hired survey vessel leaves with no solution on tanker

•Mayors demand re-floating of sunken Solar 1 oil tanker

By GEROME DALIPE IV
and RYAN B. LACHICA

ILOILO City – The Japanese survey vessel that Petron Corp. hired to locate the sunken MT Solar 1 left Guimaras without definite recommendations on what to do with the ill-fated vessel. The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) expressed disappointment.

But mayors of Negros Occidental are demanding the immediate salvaging or resurfacing of the MT Solar 1 oil tanker from the Guimaras Strait. This demand is non-negotiable, they stressed.

Iloilo Coast Guard chief Commander Harold Jarder said they wanted “a clear confirmation directly from the officials of the Japanese survey on what to do with the oil cargo.”

Shin Sei Maru is equipped with a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Hakuyo 2000. It has a sonar capable of searching the seabed at a depth of two kilometers.

Owned by Fukuda Salvage and Marine Works Company Limited, Petron hired it to detect the ill-fated tanker carrying 13,000 barrels or 2,195,439 metric tons of bunker fuel.

The tanker was finally spotted Thursday last week, 20 days after it sank last August 11.

Jarder said the Japanese survey vessel left Guimaras on Saturday without offering any immediate solution.

Petron said Shin Sei Maru will release their findings next week yet, a month after the vessel had sunk.

Authorities earlier said they have three options – re-float the tanker, entombed it or siphon off the remaining oil from its compartments.

Jarder said the Norwegian embassy offered help to the Coast Guard. A Norwegian company capable of re-floating the tanker is meeting Philippine officials.

In Bacolod City, Negros Occidental mayors agreed to call for Solar I’s re-floating during yesterday’s Peace and Order Council Meeting at the Provincial Capitol. Gov. Joseph Marañon supports the mayors’ demand.

The council is wary that the prolonged stay of the tanker in the strait would lead to more oil leaks.

Lt. Cmdr. Edgar Ibañez of the PCG-Bacolod City reported to the council that the Japanese survey vessel, Shen Sei Maru, had not yet recommended any action on the sunken oil tanker.

Ibañez said the Coast Guard would be meeting on Thursday with officials of Norwegian company, PRAMO, and assess the company’s capability to re-float the oil tanker.

He said the company has a remotely operated off-loading system capable of surfacing the vessel.

“In their experience, it would take about six months to re-surface the vessel,” said Ibañez.

Another option, said Ibañez, is to siphon the remaining bunker oil from the tanker. Panay News

Quote of the year

“Ang problema lang, kayo. Masyado kayong magaling (You think you’re really good at reporting. That’s the problem).”

—Presidential Adviser for Western Visayas Rafael Coscolluela on media’s coverage of the oil spill, Sept. 5, 2006

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Just doing our job, Señor Coscolluela, unlike some people we know.

As predicted, Petron gets off with slap on the wrist

DOJ probers clear Petron of criminal liability in oil spill

AN investigating panel by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday cleared Petron Corp., the country’s largest oil firm, of criminal liability in the sinking of the MT Solar I.

Justice Undersecretary Ernesto Pineda, chair of the fact-finding team, said Petron Corp. may still have civil liability because it commissioned the ill-fated tanker.

“We are still studying the civil liability of Petron but criminally, we don’t have a case against it because it had no direct knowledge of the circumstances that led to the sinking … [We found no] criminal liability on the part of Petron, only civil liability,” Pineda said on dzRH radio.

Petron Corp. chartered the MT Solar I from Sunshine Maritime Development Corp. to transport some 2.2 million liters of bunker fuel from its refinery in Limay, Bataan to Zamboanga City.

The vessel sank on August 11, spilling thousands of liters of oil into the Guimaras Strait in central Philippines.

Criminal and civil charges were recommended yesterday by the justice department against Norberto Aguro, captain of MT Solar I that sank off Guimaras island on Aug. 11, who was found to have an expired license, overloaded his vessel and violated practically every rule in the mariner’s book.

The filing of similar charges were recommended also against Clemente Cancio, president of Sunshine Maritime Development Corp., which owned the tanker.

Meanwhile, lawmakers yesterday questioned the reported hiring by the Coast Guard of a Norwegian consultant for the Guimaras oil spill cleanup.

Petron Corp. chartered the tanker MT Solar 1 which sank off Guimaras Island on Aug. 11, causing the oil spill.

(For the full stories, click Petron cleared and Malaya, Sept. 6, 2006.)

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DIDN’T I say so? No surprise here despite the obvious negligence of Petron in chartering a vessel that wasn’t double-hulled to begin with, hiring a firm that has ancient tankers–oh I mean tanker, there was only one actually in use, of the three owned by Sunshine Maritime–and the oh, so slow response by the oil firm to the accident.

The play of the probe was evident from the start. (A farce if you ask me.) Petron was given a lot of leeway to push its excuses to the fore…despite Sunshine Maritime’s insistence that the oil firm knew about its skipper’s record and papers.

Trust a government agency like DOJ to investigate a case involving a company with strong ties to the Chief Executive herself. Hmmm…that Saudi Aramco fund donation to her campaign kitty sure bought Petron a lot of insurance.

Well you know what to do people…stop loading up at Petron gas stations! Don’t give them any satisfaction from this outcome. You have the power!