The growing Visayas-wide campaign against oil exploration in the Tanon Strait Protected Seascape, which lies between Negros Oriental and Cebu, got a boost with the recent approval by the Negros Oriental Vice Mayors’ League of a resolution opposing any extension of oil drilling or any oil exploration at the protected seascape.

BY KARL G. OMBION
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 13, May 4-10, 2008

The growing Visayas-wide campaign against oil exploration in the Tanon Strait Protected Seascape (TSPS), which lies between Negros Oriental and Cebu, got a boost with the recent approval by the Negros Oriental Vice Mayors’ League of a resolution opposing any extension of oil drilling or any oil exploration at the protected seascape.

In a statement sent to Bulatlat, lawyer Gloria Eztenzo Ramos of the Save Tañon Strait Citizens Movement (STSCM) said the resolution is the first collective expression of opposition by ranking local government officials against the oil drilling at Tañon Strait, and may provide a “tipping point” in the citizens’ campaign to stop the oil exploration at the seascape.

“The League and the proponent, Bindoy Vice Mayor Valente D. Yap, have exhibited the much-needed political will to protect the environment, including the migratory species in the protected seascape, as well as the general welfare of the hundreds of thousands of constituents and their families who are dependent on Tañon Strait for their sustenance,” Ramos said.

Ramos said that Tañon Strait is considered one of the ten richest fishing grounds, and the feeding, breeding and nursery grounds, and migratory path of 14 out of 27 species of cetaceans in the Philippines.

“The unprecedented resolution effectively demolishes the claim of the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) and the DoE (Department of Energy) that the local government units were consulted and that the approval of the respective Sanggunian of the estimated forty local government units in the TSPS was obtained prior to the controversial oil drilling,” Ramos added.

Vince Cinches, co-founder of STSCM and executive director of the Cebu-based Fishermen’s Development Center (FIDEC), said that the resolution is “commendable and the kind of politics Cebuano leaders should emulate –  one that is devoid of decisions based on patronage and corruption.”

“With this, there is still hope with these kinds of leaders and this should inspire advocates to pursue more fervently our campaign to save Tañon,” Cinches said.

The country’s foremost marine mammal expert, Dr. Lemnuel Aragones of the University of the Philippines (UP) Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology, welcomed the move saying, “Tañon Strait is a unique natural heritage which has local, national and global significance; this action is an indication, for him that “the local government units of Negros Oriental have awakened and realized that their future and the fragile environment are at stake, from the oil exploitation, since Tañon Strait is very narrow.”

STSCM members attended the stakeholders’ dialogue at Bindoy, Negros Oriental last month and assailed the DENR-led TSPS protected area management board’s membership as anomalous, and contrary to the provisions of the Constitution and existing laws. Bulatlat