Traces of oil seen again in waters off Mindoro

CLEANUP CREW Residents and village officials in Pola, Oriental Mindoro, clean up their shores on Tuesday following a fresh oil spill that hit the waters off the villages of Buhay na Tubig and Bacawan more than a year after the sinking of oil tanker MT Princess Empress. —Pola Mayor Jennifer Cruz Facebook

CITY OF CALAPAN, MINDORO, Philippines — A fresh oil slick was seen again around the site where the tanker MT Princess Empress sank more than a year ago, Mayor Jennifer Cruz of Pola, Oriental Mindoro, said on Wednesday.

Cruz, in a telephone interview on Tuesday, said she had been asking the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) where the slick, seen on Tuesday in the villages of Buhay na Tubig and Bacawan, came from.

“They should say where it came from. They say the tank of [MT Princess Empress] is empty. Is this a new vessel that sank?” Cruz said, noting that the slick was first seen 620 meters from the shore of Barangay Buhay na Tubig.

READ: Mindoro folk, on oil spill anniv, vow to hold polluters accountable

She said reports that she received indicated that the oil from the recent slick was of similar texture and smell with the one seen days after the sinking of MT Princess Empress on Feb. 28, 2023.

Princess Empress was carrying 800,000 liters of industrial fuel when it sank off Naujan town last year, causing a massive oil spill that polluted surrounding waters and left thousands, mainly in Oriental Mindoro, without livelihood. In February this year, the Department of Justice recommended criminal charges against the vessel’s owners and several others over falsified documents.

“What people know is the holes were just capped and not all [of its] oil [cargo] were taken that time. If this will not [end] now, when will it be over? My problem is that every now and then, there is an oil spill there. We no longer have a budget to support our local fisherfolk,” Cruz said, referring to the efforts the local government has been doing to ease the impact of the prolonged fishing ban that followed the spill last year on residents, most of whom rely on fishing for their livelihood.

The PCG, as of 6 p.m. on Wednesday, had yet to respond to calls and text messages from the Inquirer.

But in an earlier television interview, the agency said it collected samples and was checking whether the slick was caused by discharge or accidental dumping from another source.

VIP yet to recover

The Protect Verde Island Passage (Protect VIP), a coalition advocating for the protection of the vital strait between Batangas province and Mindoro Island, raised the urgent need to protect the Verde Island Passage under the Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System (E-Nipas) Act after the recent oil spill in Pola.

“It is disheartening to see that the VIP is still yet to recover from the Mindoro oil spill last year, and now, another oil spill looms over its previous ground zero in Pola. We worry that this new oil spill would add up to the already existing damage in the VIP, and while that in itself is alarming, our greatest concern is the potential oil spills in the future if the VIP remains…unprotected,” Father Edwin Gariguez, lead convener of Protect VIP, said in the statement on Wednesday.

Cruz said local fishers had yet to receive compensation from the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, noting that no timetable had been set for it.

In April this year, tar balls were spotted in two villages in the City of Calapan but the PCG suspected that the leak came from other ships in the area.

In May, an oil slick was also seen at Kabilang Ibayo Beach in Barangay Batuhan in Pola town.

Cruz lamented that residents of Pola, members of the town’s disaster response team and its “Bantay Dagat” (sea patrols) would be tapped again to clean up the new spill.

“This is stressful, tiring,” she told the Inquirer.

She said a rehabilitation plan had yet to be laid out for the marine protected areas earlier affected by the spill.

Protection

Gariguez said the oil spill from MT Princess Empress last year was the Marcos administration’s first environmental disaster “and we should already learn the lesson that stronger protection for the VIP is needed.”

“We urge the Marcos administration and the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) to declare the VIP as a protected area under the E-Nipas Act to be a starting point, to prevent more oil spills and other ecological disasters in the future,” Gariguez added.

Ivan Andres, deputy head of research and policy of think tank Center for Energy, Ecology and Development, said this endangered the protected areas in the VIP which were already damaged by last year’s oil spill.

“The oil spill poses threat to vulnerable areas in the VIP, as the stricken barangays of Bahay na Tubig and Bacawan are homes to a mangrove sanctuary and a marine protected area (MPA), respectively. We have already witnessed the deteriorating water quality in the VIP’s MPAs since the Ranzo fish sanctuary in Bacawan was reported to fail the water quality guidelines set by DENR,” said Andres in the statement released by Protect VIP.

“Given that no rehabilitation plans are pushing through for the affected MPAs, this new oil spill worsening the damage is alarming for the marine life in the VIP. Strict investigation and urgent action are needed to identify the cause and ensure immediate containment of the spill, alongside proper assessment of the damage,” he said.