BY HERBERT VEGO
GUIMARAS – It was eight years ago when the oil tanker “M/T Solar I” sank off Nueva Valencia town on August 11, 2006, spilling one-fourth of its two million liters of bunker oil cargo, but some of the residents adversely affected have yet to receive compensation for damages incurred.
Taking up the cudgels for fishermen, boat owners, fish vendors, resort operators, and everybody else with pending compensation claims, Nueva Valencia’s Mayor Emmanuel C. Galila has written a letter to President Benigno Aquino III seeking his intercession. The letter is reproduced in today’s editorial.
To recall, “M/T Solar I” was transporting oil owned by Petron Corp. from the latter’s refinery plant to Zamboanga City when it sank off Guimaras Strait, immediately polluting the sea water with spilled oil.
The Special Board of Marine Inquiry appointed by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo failed to determine the cause of the spill.
An estimated 10 thousand individuals who depended on the sea for their livelihood eventually filed claims for pollution damage, cleanup and relief activities with the International Oil Pollution Compensation (IOPC) Fund.
But as stated in Mayor Galila’s letter to the President, the amounts they received – ranging from P5,000 to P10,000 – were just “enough to pay for a month’s supply of rice and fish for their families.”
On August 6, 2009 – three years after the accident that had already cost the lives of some spill-related victims of respiratory diseases – the claimants filed two civil and one criminal cases against Petron, Sunshine Maritime and Development Corporation (owner of “M/T Solar I”) and IOPC, demanding payment of sufficient compensation, but these have remained on pre-trial stage.
Noel Torres, one of the claimants, told Panay News the oil spill had totally paralyzed his fishing boats-for-rent business.
“Our recovery,” he said, “depends on the payment of our claims.”
For his part, he expects to receive at least P220,000 for 22 months of lost income, computed at P10,000 a month.
“The environment has not reverted to its normal state before the oil spill,” Torres lamented. “Marine life is still scarce. The mangroves which used to flourish on the coast as natural habitat for marine life are gone, too.”
Mayor Galila has mobilized the municipal government to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the “8-11 oil spill” on its exact date on Monday morning (August 11) with a program at the municipal covered gym on the theme “The Oil Spill Tragedy: A Challenge for Disaster Preparedness; a Call for Environmental Rehabilitation and Just Compensation.”
Speakers include Gov. Samuel Gumarin, Rep. Rahman Nava, Mayor Galila, Vice Mayor Luz Gambalan, Sangguniang Bayan member Charry Galia, and resource persons from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources./PN
