Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 11) — The United States on Thursday confirmed a commercial tanker is at Subic Bay to transport clean fuel from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to a local storage facility.
\”We can confirm that the Yosemite Trader, a commercial tanker, is currently in the vicinity of Subic Bay, Philippines in order to transfer clean fuel from the U.S. military facility at Red Hill, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to a commercial storage facility at Subic Bay,\” US Embassy spokesperson Kanishka Gangopadhyay said in a statement.
Gangopadhyay explained that the transfer is \”one of multiple shipments of safe, clean fuel from the Red Hill facility to other locations in the Pacific.\”
“All arrangements for the transfer and storage of this fuel were made through the proper channels, using established logistics contracts with Philippine commercial entities,” he added.
Sen. Imee Marcos demanded an explanation from the government about the transfer of 39 million gallons of US fuel to Subic Bay, lamenting the \”pre-positioning of military supplies in the country\” as tensions flare in the region.
Marcos said the US-registered tanker Yosemite Trader was loaded with fuel on Dec. 20 last year, and entered Philippine territory on Tuesday where it remained on Wednesday around 50 kilometers west of Subic Bay.
She described the transfer as Washington’s \”strike three in attempting to deprive the Filipino people of the right to know.\”
The first strike was its request to house Afghan refugees in the Philippines. The second was its unadvised military aircraft landing in the country’s international and domestic airports.
AFP ‘ready to present facts’
Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., meanwhile, said they started investigating immediately after Sen. Marcos raised the issue.
“We are ready to present the facts that we have unearthed about this importation of gasoline into the country,” he said in an ambush interview.
Brawner also denied AFP’s involvement, but asserted that there are some government agencies linked to the fuel shipment.
“Hindi po involved ‘yung AFP,\” he said. \”We are ready to explain our side na hindi kasama ang AFP sa transaksyon na ito.”
[Translation: The AFP is not involved. We are ready to explain our side that the AFP is not involved in this transaction.]
‘Nothing to explain’
In a separate statement, the Department of National Defense explained that the shipment of fuel from Pearl Harbor to Subic Bay is “part of regular commercial transactions between the US Government and Philippine companies.”
“The Armed Forces of the Philippines has nothing to explain,” AFP spokesperson Col Medel Aguilar said in a video sent to reporters.
“The fuel shipment and the process that was followed by the US government, which are all administrative in nature, did not involve the participation of the armed forces,” he added.
