The official party line…

Guimaras now fast recovering, says Palace official

by T. Villavert
Phil. Information Agency

Iloilo City (15 December) – The island province of Guimaras is now fast recovering. This was declared by Presidential Adviser for Western Visayas Rafael L. Coscolluela, December 14, following the announcements that more than P2 million was released by the international Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPC) as payments to some 200 persons affected by the MT Solar I oil spill. Coscolluela said that the IOPC made true their promise to release the checks before Christmas.

“This is the first batch of the claimants from the three oil spill-affected towns of Guimaras province,” he told the local media who made an ocular inspection in coordination with the Task Force Oil Spill in Guimaras, the other day.

It may be recalled that MT Solar I carrying tons of oil sank off Guimaras Strait in August 2006. Massive clean-up operations and several forms of assistance were extended both by the government, private, domestic and international institutions to mitigate the effects of the oil spill to human and marine life.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo visited the island province on several occasions and directed concerned agencies to seek all the necessary assistance, domestic or international and to extend the necessary relief and livelihood aid to the affected communities.

Coscolluela said that the first batch of the IOPC compensation claims recipients are from the two barangays – Chavez and Suclaran – of San Lorenzo town.

“In the next three days the IOPC will continue releasing the checks for claimants for the other barangays in San Lorenzo,” Coscolluela said. The Presidential Adviser said that the payments to the fishery claimants for the Municipality of San Lorenzo will be conducted during the following dates: December 14- Barangay M.Chavez and Barangay Suclaran; December 15- Barangay Igcawayan and Barangay San Enrique; December 16- Barangay Sebario; and December 17- Barangay Cabano.

He said that Joe Nichols of the IOPC will be staying over during the Christmas holidays to keep processing the claims. Persons who have been affected by the oil spill who were not able to file their claims have still time for filing their claims with the IOPC for up to three years.

(For a dose of reality, click here.)

Shell commissions double-hulled oil tanker

• Offers additional protection against crude spills

By Paul A. Isla
Reporter, BusinessMirror
Dec. 15, 2006

PILIPINAS Shell Petroleum Corp. commissioned one of the country’s first double-hulled oil tankers Thursday, more than a year before crude carriers are required to minimize oil spill risks by installing additional hulls.

In a ceremony at the South Harbor, Shell country chairman Edgar O. Chua and Energy Secretary Raphael P.M. Lotilla witnessed the blessing and commissioning of M/T Petro Cara, one of the first vessels in the country which minimizes the risk of oil spills and pollution during collision and grounding accidents.

Worth $24-million, the newly-constructed chemical tanker is owned by Transoil Corp., managed by Translift Ship Management Inc., and chartered by Shell. The oil company expects to charter four more such ships over the next two years.

“We congratulate Transoil for being a prime move in complying with the internationally accepted standards for transporting heavy grade oils,” said Shell country chairman Edgar O. Chua.

For his part, Lotilla welcomed the commissioning of the tanker, in view of President Arroyo’s directives to cut the double-hull deadline short to 2008. Under an international convention, companies transporting crude and other similar chemicals are required to use double-hulled ships by 2015.

According to Lotilla, this would help prevent the recurrence of the oil spills such as the one which happened in Guimaras last August.

Meanwhile, Chua noted that the archipelagic geography of the Philippines presents a unique operational challenge because of the frequency of waterborne movements of petroleum products.

4 MONTHS AFTER OIL SPILL Still no funds for Guimaras rehabilitation, say officials

By Thea Alberto
INQ7.net, Dec. 14, 2006

GUIMARAS – Four months after the MT Solar I, laden with two million liters of bunker fuel, sank in waters some 10 miles from here, the national government has yet to release funds to rehabilitate areas of the province devastated by the resulting oil spill.

Governor JC Rahman Nava told INQ7.net that the P1.2-billion budget for restoration work promised by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ” was already approved in the Senate last October but we still have to receive it.”

During a visit here following the oil spill, Arroyo declared a national calamity and promised support for restoration efforts.

Evan Arias, Guimaras officer for plans and programs, said the lack of funds has prevented the province from recovering from what many quarters have described as the “worst oil spill” in the country.

The spill affected nearly 20 barangays (villages) in the towns of Nueva Valencia and Sibunag and forced the evacuation of more than a thousand residents, Guimaras provincial government records showed.

Arias also noted that the Solar I is still under water and will most likely continue leaking oil.

Despite the arrival of local and international experts here, there are still no concrete plans about what to do with the sunken tanker, although officials say siphoning the remaining fuel remains the best option.

Arias lamented that the delay in rehabilitation efforts has deprived Guimaras residents, whose livelihood is mainly fishing, is a living but also continues the province’s ecosystem.

“The bunker oil has seeped almost 30 centimeters into the sea sediment,” said Arias, noting that ” the government can handle a landslide but not [an] oil spill.”

Although the University of the Philippines- Visayas has been tasked to conduct a research on the spill, the school cannot immediately provide research conclusions because a lot of studies have still to be done, Arias said.

– Also read Mla Standard Today, Dec. 15, 2006

Gov’t eyes declaration of Tubbataha as sensitive sea area

By Sheila Crisostomo
The Philippine Star 12/15/2006

PUERTO PRINCESA, Palawan — The Philippine government is preparing a request to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to designate the entire archipelago as a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) to protect the country’s rich and vast marine resources.

This came at the heels of three environmental disasters, including the Guimaras oil spill, which was considered the largest oil spill in Philippine history.

Speaking here before participants to the conference called Conservation Through Collaboration, Ambassador Alberto Encomienda, secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)-Maritime and Ocean Affairs Center (MOAC), said the declaration of the Philippines as a PSSA is apt to protect its interests as a “maritime state.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Pilar Juliana “Pia” Cayetano sought yesterday the declaration of 18 biodiversity “hotspots” across the country as protected areas, including the famed Tubbataha Reef National Park in Palawan, to the lesser known Sinarapan Lake Sanctuary in Camarines Sur which hosts the world’s smallest fish, known to local townsfolk as the “sinarapan.”

By declaring each of these 18 landscapes and seascapes as “protected areas,” the government would be able to set up the mechanism needed to protect each one’s biodiversity against destructive human exploitation like logging and poaching,” said Cayetano, who chairs the Senate committee on environment and natural resources.

A policy paper prepared by the DFA-MOAC entitled “Proposal for the Designation of the Philippines Archipelago as a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area” is currently awaiting endorsement from the Office of the President. It would be submitted to the IMO for approval.

“A PSSA designation is among a number of available measures to preserve and protect the marine environment, as well as conserve and manage living resources that are already being resorted to by the IMO,” Encomienda said.

“It is already an established modality for providing protection to delicate or vulnerable sea areas, especially from shipping activities, and expanding the scope of marine environmental protection measures even beyond national jurisdictions,” he added.

Encomienda raised the issue during the two-day national conference here sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and its National Commission of the Philippines Committees on Culture, Science and Technology.

The national conference is aimed at stepping up efforts to improve management of the Tubbataha Reefs and Greater Sulu Sea, which is a UNESCO World Heritage and Ramsar Convention of Wetlands of International Importance site, and a major fishing ground vital to Filipinos.

“PSSA as a progressive concept is most appropriate and must be harnessed in protecting and promoting the vital national interests of the Philippines,” Encomienda said.

According to the WWF-Philippines, PSSAs are areas of the seas and oceans that need special protection through action by the IMO because of their ecological, economic, cultural, or scientific significance, and their vulnerability to harmful impacts of shipping activities.

WWF-Philippines said that valuable ecosystems such as coral reefs, coastal wetlands, and important habitats could benefit from PSSAs while it is also important for migrating birds, sea turtles, whales or other marine species, as well as feeding grounds for valuable fish stocks.

Moreover, the WWF-Philippines said that PSSAs could benefit “marine areas of ability” in coastal nations, so they could impose and enforce their own environmental and navigation regulations on foreign ships passing through their waters.

“Within their 12-mile territorial waters, coastal nations may not ‘impair’ a foreign ship’s right of innocent passage. Beyond the territorial seas, in the Exclusive Economic Zone or equivalent extending out to 200 miles from the shore, coastal states can only adopt regulations that have been previously approved by the IMO,” explained the WWF-Philippines paper released to media during the conference.

“As such, international regulations are generally meant to apply to all ships everywhere they go. Thus, it can be difficult to protect discrete areas of the marine environment that are particularly sensitive.” — With Christina Mendez