Guimaras Oil Spill Ship Found Unfit
for Sailing
Ship captain had no oil
management and safety training
Initial findings
from a Board of Marine Inquiry investigation of the Aug. 11 oil spill in
Guimaras reveal that the safety management certificate of Solar 1, the
ship that figured in the disaster, had already expired. Moreover, the
board suspended the ship’s captain Norberto Aguro for failing to undergo
oil tanker training and management.
BY KARL G. OMBION
AND RYAN B. LACHICA
Bulatlat
|
BACOLOD CITY – Initial findings from a
Board of Marine Inquiry investigation of the Aug. 11 oil spill in
Guimaras reveal that the safety management certificate of Solar 1, the
ship that figured in the disaster, had already expired. The board also
suspended the ship’s captain Norberto Aguro for failing to undergo oil
tanker training and management.
Residents of the coastal village
of Sumirib use shovels to collect sludge deposited on the coastline of
Guimaras island |
Marina has ordered
the immediate grounding of the two sister vessels of oil tanker M/T Solar
1. Arnie Santiago, acting enforcement manager of Marina in Manila,
identified the two sister vessels as Solar 2 and Solar 3. “We will not
allow them to operate until the probe on the sinking is over,” he said
during the Regional Disaster Coordinating Council (RDCC) 6 meeting here.
The Board of Marine
Inquiry, an agency under Marina, likewise recommended the filing of
administrative charges against Aguro and the Sunshine Maritime Development
Corporation, pending further investigations.
Repeating
disasters
Meanwhile, despite
the claims of the government and local RDCCs that the Philippines is a
disaster-prepared country, disaster-preparedness has been the least of
priorities of this government, commented environmentalist activist and
mining engineer Efren Fabila.
Fabila said
government particularly Coast Guard has not been serious in addressing the
causes of countless disasters in the country. “That is why we keep on
having disaster after another at the expense of our environment and
people,” he said.
Fabila recounted the
grounding of National Power Corporation (Napocor) Power Barge 106 off the
coast of Semirara Island in Caluya, Antique, eight months ago, after
suffering hours of battering from strong winds and waves. “It spilled more
than 200,000 liters of bunker fuel, affecting hundreds of hectares of
shoreline around Semirara and neighboring shores; and millions of pesos
are being spent for the clean up and rehabilitation of the affected areas,
unfortunately, the job remain unfinished today,” Fabila said.
He also blamed the
Coast Guard and the local ports authority for not giving right information
and precautions. “The tanker should not have been allowed to sail given
the storms last week wrecking havoc throughout the country. They should
have learned from the Semirara disaster and countless other disasters that
had shaken our country in the past years like the Negros Navigation Dona
Paz and M/V Cassandra,” he said.
Storms before
disaster
Just a day before the
oil tanker ship disaster, central Philippines had been battered by two
successive storms, bringing untold flashfloods and wind battering,
damaging agriculture, properties and lives worth tens of millions of
pesos. Worse, people were caught flat-footed as the Philippine
Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA)
did not raise any storm signal over the Western Visayas.
As fast as the
destructive storms that came and left, so was the sinking of the 998-ton
locally registered M/T Solar 1 oil hauler, owned by Sunshine Maritime, an
oil hauler for petroleum giant Petron Corporation, off Guimaras strait
afternoon of Aug. 11.
The tanker left Limay
town in Bataan on Aug. 9 en route to Sangali town in Zamboanga del Sur,
southern Philippines. It was contracted by Petron to ship two million
liters of bunker fuel to the Western Mindanao Power Corporation.
Damaged vessel
Region 6 Coast Guard
investigations showed that early in the morning of Aug. 10, crew members
had already noticed that the ship’s chain locker, the compartment that
holds the anchor, had taken in water and the ship itself had begun to lean
by about six degrees to the right.
Despite this, Aguro
gave the order to sail toward Iloilo. Then at around noon while traversing
Iloilo strait toward open sea to Zamboanga, the ship leaned further to
around 10 degrees. At around 4 p.m., Aguro made a right turn to Iloilo
when the ship was already badly leaning right with its head down. He gave
an order to abandon ship at 16.6 miles southwest of Lusaran Point in Nueva
Valencia town, Guimaras island.
Seventeen crew
members including Aguro and two surveyors made it to the shore while two
others, Victor Morados and Art Ian Nabua, failed to jump off to the sea.
They remain missing.
Costly oil spill
As of press time, the
ship’s sinking has already caused an oil spill contaminating 200
kilometers of the coastline of Nueva Valencia, Sibunag and San Lorenzo
towns. This has reportedly affected more than 20 sq. kms of coral reefs,
1,100 has. of the Taclong
national marine
reserve in Nueva Valencia, at least 4,000 fishermen and 17,000 households
in several coastal villages.
The oil slick also
threatens more coastal villages of central Negros particularly those in
Bago City and Pulupandan, Valladolid and San Enrique towns.
The mayors of
Pulupandan and Valladolid have reported imminent threats to their shrimp
industries. They are at risk of losing millions of pesos from the possible
damage, they say.
Before this,
Pulupandan Mayor Luis Mondia said that the shrimp industry in his town has
already suffered about P50 million in losses caused by the bad weather and
typhoons. It is likely to suffer more with the threat of oil spill
contamination.
Similarly, Valladolid
Mayor Ricardo Presbitero, Jr. also said that the shrimp industry in his
municipality suffered millions of pesos in losses. “It would take us more
than two years to rehabilitate the industry,” he said.
Negros prepares for oil spill spread
Gov. Joseph Marañon
of Negros Occidental said he has already given advisories to the local
government units (LGUs) most likely to be affected.
He also said that the
coastguard was immediately mobilized to assess the situation. The Coast
Guard with the help of Petron has created Oil Spill Combat Teams (OSCT) to
prevent the oil spill from spreading.
Marañon said he will
ask Petron for its counterpart in the cleaning program to be organized by
the provincial government and the LGUs. The clean-up is estimated to cost
about P2.2.
Meanwhile, lawyer
Jose Ma. Valencia, provincial chief of staff and spokesperson of the
Provincial Oil Spill Task Force, said they will likely sue Petron for the
oil spill. Bulatlat
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