Guimaras recovering but non-release of funds stalls rehab

August 11th, 2008 | by Site Administrator |

TWO years after a massive oil spill hit this island-province, officials and experts said the island is showing recovery and coping from the impact of the calamity.

But rehabilitation efforts have been stalled by the non-release of around P150 million intended for development programs.

“Our activities are back to normal,” Guimaras Gov. Felipe Nava told the newspaper Philippine Daily Inquirer.

He said residents in all areas affected by the oil spill have gone back to fishing.

Around 2.1 million liters of oil spilled in the waters off Guimaras after M/T Solar I, which was chartered by Petron Corp., sank in stormy seas off the island on Aug. 11, 2006.

Nava said fish catch has gone down but this could also be caused by over fishing.

The oil spill had affected 5,437 families or 26,740 individuals in Guimaras alone and contaminated fishing grounds and devastated the island’s rich marine life and tourism sites.

Scientists last year reported a 65 percent drop in fish catch and the death of hundreds of mangrove trees in the wake of the oil spill.

Nava said more tourists have started to arrive in the island’s beach and mountain resorts but the number has not yet reached pre-oil spill levels.

He said there was still a need to determine the long-term effect of the oil spill on the island’s ecosystem.

“There are signs of recovery but further sampling and monitoring are necessary to provide solid evidence of full recovery of plants and animals,” said Dr. Rex Sadaba, a mangrove expert and head of the University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV) Oil Spill Response Program.

UPV has been tasked to undertake a five-year research on the environmental impact of the oil spill in the 1,143-hectare Taklong Island National Marine Reserve (Tinmar) located in Nueva Valencia, the hardest hit of the province’s five towns.

Sadaba said initial research results showed the leaf fall of affected mangroves in Tinmar has dropped.

“This indicates the mangroves’ recovery and coping to the stress,” he said.

But there were reported reduction in the population of sea grass and sea cucumbers.

Sadaba said they still needed to complete the researches in the next four years before they could make definite conclusions.

Nava said the province has received P120,443,740 from the P867.401 million rehabilitation fund approved by Congress. It includes appropriations to the Department of Agriculture (P100 million), Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (P130 million), Department of Health (P22 million), DSWD (P247 million), local government units (P250 million), UP-Visayas (P50 million), and other agencies (P64 million).

But he lamented the non-release of around P150 million from the rehabilitation fund intended for livelihood projects, infrastructure and water and electric systems for the affected communities.

The fund was reverted to the national treasury because of delays in disbursement of the funds and the implementation of projects.

Accounting rules require that funds released to agencies should be obligated by the end of the year or it will be considered lapsed and automatically reverted to the national treasury.

A fund intended for a project is considered obligated if the corresponding bidding and awarding of contracts have been completed.

Nava said they received the bulk of the funds only on December 2007 or 16 months after the oil spill.

He has appealed to the national government to find ways to have the reverted funds released.

Glen Rabonza, executive officer of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, said it is up to the Department of Budget and Management to release the reverted fund.

But he said rehabilitation programs are “doing good.”

“We are well on our way to full implementation of the rehabilitation programs,” he said in a telephone interview.

He said they were also following up the remaining claims mostly of national government agencies for reimbursement of expenses from the London-based International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPCF).

The IOPCF has paid a total of P908,120,203 to 22,437 claimants as compensation for economic losses and refund for expenses in the clean-up and preventive measures in relation to the oil spill, according to the Fund’s 2007 annual report. But the IOPCF had rejected around 133,000 other claims.

Nestor Burgos Jr., Philippine Daily Inquirer