Iloilo fishers receive oil spill compensation

April 5th, 2008 by Site Administrator

THIRTY SIX residents of the municipality of Miagao in Iloilo were recipients of the oil spill compensation fund recently released by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund 1992 relative to the Solar 1 Oil Spill incident in August 2006.

After rigid verification of their application, the second batch of claimants received to as much as much as P4,652.00 and to as low as P2,720.00 in checks based on the category of their activities being affected. The 36 claimants were all bonafide recipients, registered in the registry of municipal fisher folks conducted by the Office of the Municipal Agriculturist.

To recall, the release of funds for the first batch of claimants hogged the headlines of local papers when First District Representatives Janet L. Garin questioned the release of their claims. She claimed among others that the claimants of the said fund were “fraudulent” and that “no verifications were made aside from the recommendation of politicians”.

Based on records, however, the applications of the claimants were already processed before the election period in 2007.

In their position paper, the first batch of claimants stressed that “it was just incidental that such application has to pass through the office of Mayor Gerardo N. Flores for signature. The said accomplished and complied forms were then forwarded to the Provincial Legal Office at the Provincial Capitol for approval. These process were religiously complied by the registered fisher folk claimants.”

With the recent unexpected development, the second batch of claimants, through Mayor Julieta N. Flores, expressed their warm and sincerest gratitude to Gov. Niel Tupas and Claims manager Capt. Patrick Joseph.

“The release was timely since our fishermen are one of those who are tremendously affected by the increase in prices of prime commodities,” Flores said.