Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 24) — Environmental advocates from the Protect Verde Island Passage (VIP) coalition urged government agencies on Monday to release the final assessment report on the massive oil spill in Oriental Mindoro, expressing alarm the situation has been declared “already resolved” even when recent tests showed water in some areas did not meet quality guidelines.
“We are gravely alarmed by increasing pronouncements of government agencies and bodies, both local and national, to brand this situation as already resolved,” the Protect VIP said ahead of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s second State of the Nation Address (SONA).
\”As the President’s first year in office concludes, we challenge the Marcos administration not to prove itself as a government that settles for hollow wins in the oil spill crisis while condemning affected peoples to suffering and turning a blind eye to the ailing health of the VIP,\” it added.
The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on June 17 announced the completion of siphoning operations of the remaining oil in the sunken MT Princess Empress, which caused the oil spill last Feb. 28.
On July 20, Gov. Humerlito \”Bonz\” Dolor said all fishing bans have been lifted in the province, including in the remaining town Pola, which was hit the hardest by the oil spill.
The advocacy group said provincial disaster management officials in Oriental Mindoro have also \”sent out invitations for a demobilization ceremony to announce the termination of the oil spill response, even without so much as publishing the final assessment report supposedly conducted by technical experts and representatives from national agencies.\”
The Protect VIP said it supports the return of livelihood of fisherfolk in the province, but it is concerned \”by the lack of transparency on the scientific basis and methodologies employed by the government to order such lifting of fishing bans.\”
’14’: ‘image’: ‘jcr:1d210ba5-4841-4c39-bf7c-0c3f68543013’ ‘imageCaption’: ‘Clockwise, from upper left: Rocky shores of Brgy. Puting Cacao, Pola, oil stains on a bangka in Brgy. Misong, Pola, tar balls found along the shoreline of Brgy. Batuhan, Pola, and oil-covered debris found along the
It said its rapid water quality assessment conducted on July 17 in six marine protected areas (MPAs) in Pinamalayan and Pola revealed that \”five of them exceeded water quality guidelines for oil and grease.\”
\”The results show that five out of the six MPAs did not meet the water quality standards for oil and grease because these sites have a concentration of >1.0 mg/L and the only MPA that is within the standards of water quality in terms of oil and grease is the Bacawan Fish Sanctuary in Pola. With this, the pollution level for the five MPAs is high and could ultimately impact the ecosystem within the established MPAs,\” the group said in its assessment report.
Advocates also said oil residue and tar balls were still visible in protected areas. They said they saw traces of oil on the shores of Barangay Puting Cacao in Pola near the St. John the Baptist Reserve MPA and on the beach of Sitio Kabilang Ibayo in Barangay, Batuhan.
\”These results lead us to question if the motivation behind the lifting of bans and similar efforts to conclude oil spill responses are genuinely in the service of returning the livelihood of fisherfolk, or is a hasty and dangerous decision made to provide the Marcos administration means to claim a superficial success in its oil spill response efforts,\” the group said.
The group also noted that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources last published a situational report on June 21 that showed some sampling stations in Pola were still found to exceed water quality guidelines for the presence of oil and grease. The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, on the other hand, did not substantiate its reports that would establish it conducted a robust quantitative test, it added
Pola Mayor Jennifer Cruz earlier said she will not yet sign the PCG’s declaration that her town’s coast is \”100% clean.\”
