By HERBERT VEGO
WHEN my friend Noel Torres told me the other day that Mayor Emmanuel Galila of Nueva Valencia, Guimaras had written a letter to the President to intervene in behalf of compensation claimants who had suffered as a result of the oil spill that devastated the entire province, I gasped in disbelief. It had been eight long years since August 11, 2006 when oil tanker “M/T Solar I” sank off Guimaras Strait, spilling approximately 500,000 liters out of 2.1 million liters of bunker oil.
I had thought that Petron Corp. and Sunshine Maritime Development Corp. (SMDC) — owners of the spilled oil and the tanker, respectively – had fully compensated the claimants
But based on the mayor’s letter to PNoy, at least a thousand Guimarasnons – a tenth of the declared oil spill victims – had filed civil and criminal cases against Petron, SMDc and the International Oil Pollution Compensation (IOPC) Fund for abandoning the spill victims.
The aggrieved claimants told the Guimaras regional trial court that all they had received from respondents were between P5,000 and P10,000 for their loss of livelihood.
The cases were filed in 2009 yet, but they are still on pre-trial stage.
They went to court because what they had received is barya when compared to their claims which range from P200,000 to P500,000 for 22 months of livelihood deprivation. In the case of my friend Noel, he wants P220,000 – computed at P10,000 a month – because the tragedy had totally paralyzed the two fishing boats that he used to rent out.
Noel, who has not returned to business to this day, lamented, “The environment has not reverted to its normal state before the oil spill. Marine life is still scarce. The mangroves which used to flourish on the coast as natural habitat for marine life are gone, too.”
The spill has damaged Taklong Island National Marine Reserve, a marine sanctuary and breeding ground for fish and other species.
No doubt Mayor Galila made the right move in writing a letter to the President. There is now a glimmer of hope that public interest in the almost forgotten tragedy would spring the government back into action.
Assuming PNoy intervenes, will that soften the respondents into complying with claimants’ demand? It would be like accepting their fault, hence costly.
I hope I am wrong, but after the passing of eight long years, the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI) appointed by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to determine the cause of the spill has not made any conclusive finding on whose fault the oil spill was.
It was also a failure on the part of Arroyo, who said after visiting the island, “We shall do everything in our power to right the wrongs caused by this unfortunate incident,”
Some members of the board laid the blame on SMDC for “overloading” the tanker. “M/T Solar I” had an authorized load capacity of only 1.2 million liters of oil, not 2.1. Allowing the “Solar I” to carry a larger load allegedly destabilized the vessel.
On the other hand, a Marine Industry Authority (Marina) representative, naval architect Carlos Odi, testified before the board that the tanker’s load was within Marina’s allowed limits.
Commodore Benjamin Mata, representing the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), said he was looking into that a hole in the hull of the tanker might have caused its sinking.
Another BMI member paid attention to marks found just below the hole, “which indicate there must have been a barge or small boat that came alongside the vessel.”
In that case, the men in that boat must have been known to the tanker employees and have come for an “inside job,” which was to pilfer oil from the tanker.
That’s where the master of the tanker could be held liable.
Unfortunately, by the time the BMI summoned Capt. Norberto Aguro to shed light on the matter, he could no longer be found.
So what else is new? There have already been a score of sea tragedies in as many years, and as many unsolved cases./PN
