Oil spill traced to corruption, incompetence
August 21st, 2006 by Site Administrator
OFFICIALS of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources investigating the Guimaras oil spill have promised to release the results of their inquiry some time this week.
If the DENR officials make good on their promise, it would be an improvement over the investigation of a similar incident on December 18 last year when a barge of the state-owned National Power Corp. ran aground off Semirara Island. The Napocor barge spilled 364,000 liters of fuel and ruined vast stretches of the coast of Antique province.
Informed quarters, however, doubt that DENR would be able to wrap up its probe of the Guimaras oil spill as quickly as promised. They point out that the investigation of the Semirara incident took at least three months to complete—and the results were widely regarded as insufficient since they produced no new policy, standards or practices that would have prevented more oil spills.
Case in point: The oil spill from the MT Solar I, which sank in rough seas August 11, has affected over 200 kilometers of the Guimaras coastline, including beaches and mangroves—killing wildlife and disrupting the livelihood of at least 10,000 Guimareños.
Nearly a week after the tanker sank, the cleanup has been described as spotty, haphazard and ineffective. Worse, the oil spill happened right smack in the middle of the monsoon season, raising the danger of the slick spreading to other islands.The DENR probe of the Guimaras oil spill is focused on the ecological destruction wrought by the oil spill. However, the investigators should not stop there.
In the first place, industry sources said, Solar I should not have been contracted by Petron Corp. to transport oil. Sources described the obsolete, single-hull tanker as a disaster waiting to happen. And happen the disaster did.
The Petron-chartered tanker was carrying 2.1 million liters of oil when it sank in the Guimaras Strait. As of noon Friday, the Philippine Coast Guard estimated that over 200,000 liters of oil have already leaked into the waters of Western Visayas. Some 1.9 million liters remain in the tanker’s nine other compartments. But if the vessel is not raised soon, the remaining oil could also spill out and cause even more widespread destruction.
The problem is that similarly decrepit tankers remain under contract with Petron and other oil companies to ferry petroleum products from depots in Luzon to islands throughout the archipelago.
In other countries, petroleum products are transported in more modern, double-hull tankers, which can better withstand the vagaries of weather than their single-hull counterparts.
Why has Petron, which is jointly owned by the Philippine government and Saudi Aramco, contracted obsolete, single-hull tankers to ferry oil products from island to island?Answering that question will require looking into who approves multimillion-peso tanker contracts. There is talk in industry circles of kickbacks and “syndicates,” which not only allow vessels of questionable seaworthiness to service Petron but also engage in other criminal activities such as pilferage, hijacking and smuggling.
These are serious charges, to say the least. Government investigators have the obligation to look into them if only to better safeguard the environment from oil spills that could have been avoided with the use of more modern seacraft.Probers would be well advised to place the owner of Solar I, Sunshine Marine Development Corp., under close scrutiny too. They need to review the company’s track record and find out if its other tankers are seaworthy.
One would have thought that after the oil spill caused by the Exxon Valdez, oil companies would have adopted stricter safety measures. Evidently not in this country.On March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Alaska and spilled about 41,000 cubic meters, or 11 million gallons, of oil. Exxon was fined and ordered to pay for the cleanup. Thereafter, the US government required oil companies to use only double-hull tankers in transporting petroleum products in US waters. That was over 17 years ago.
In the Philippines, no such policy has been adopted. As a consequence, oil spills have become a regular occurrence in our waters.When will we ever learn?
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Sen. Ralph Recto has correctly pointed out that Petron is awash with cash, which it can put to good use in cleaning up the oil-damaged beaches and mangroves of Guimaras. “The amount needed for the cleanup is just a drop in [Petron’s] barrel of profits,” he said.
Riding on high oil prices, 2005 was a banner year for Petron, the industry leader that controls 38 percent of the Philippine market.The net income of Petron last year surged to P5.765 billion from P3.886 billion in 2004, representing an increase of 48 percent. This was on gross sales of P191.2 billion, up 29 percent from the 2004 level of P147.5 billion.Petron’s earnings per share improved to 61 centavos from 41 centavos in 2004. It paid P2 billion in income taxes last year.
Petron’s financials show that it can easily grant the request of local government officials in Guimaras and Iloilo for financial assistance in the cleanup.“Figures don’t lie,” Recto said. “Petron can’t invoke lack of income in rejecting well-meaning requests for assistance.”
Nonetheless, Recto credited Petron for being “pro-active” in the way it is handling the Guimaras crisis. “Now is the time for it to renew its good corporate citizenship credentials,” the senator added.
As further proof of its corporate responsibility, Petron should weed out and penalize its employees and officials whose incompetence and/or corruption are at the root of the Guimaras oil spill. (Manila Times, August 21, 2006)