A month after the sinking of the MT Princess Empress, communities in the Mimaropa region, comprising at least 172,000 individuals are still on the losing end of an unwanted bargain. Not only are health risks evident, but damages to marine life and coastal ecosystems in Southern Tagalog waters also increase as efforts to contain the oil spill grow paler by the day.
Meanwhile, tourism struggles to brave the waves of the seas that carry the greatest threat to Oriental Mindoro residents to date.
According to the Department of Tourism (DOT), the oil spill has now affected at least 61 of its tourist sites. It seems that the grandest efforts of the province residents to clean up the oil spill today are not enough to revive the livelihood they once had. The local economy is already flatlined by the disaster, while not yet discounting the negative economic returns brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and high inflation rates in recent months.
However, just when nearby provinces started gaining momentum in kick-starting their local economies through tourism, another threat to their total recovery emerged unexpectedly.
As part of the cleanup efforts, the UP Marine Science Institute (UP MSI) released a projection that shows the path the oil spill might take in the next few weeks. It visualizes how the oil could reach certain waters and coastlines in the Mimaropa region and other nearby provinces.
On the other hand, Puerto Galera Mayor Rocky Ilagan argued that the same projection by UP MSI, and not the spill itself, amplified the oil spill scare despite it not even reaching the province of Palawan yet. He said that the projection resulted in tourist cancellations at well-known tourist sites in the area, thus preventing the generation of what would have been an economy-reviving provincial income.
In response, UP MSI associate professor Dr. Irene Rodriguez counter-argued that the projection was just an “early warning” for local governments to prepare should the oil spill reach their shorelines in the days or weeks to come.
Still, the mayor insisted that UP MSI must be held responsible for the projection as the tourism-based livelihood of thousands of families in the region is at stake.
But while the arguments are contrasting, the cases made by both parties are logical and justified.
In the case of the Puerto Galera mayor, it is very true that an oil spill scare does not help the situation of local governments in affected areas of the oil spill. In fact, it is not just affecting the livelihood of the residents, but also their health. Contaminated food sources, illnesses, and contractions from other major health complications were what the residents of Pola, Oriental Mindoro, who were most affected by the environmental and health effects of the oil spill, witnessed mere days after the sinking of the vessel. Ilagan was correct in putting the livelihood and health of the Mimaropa residents first.
And as for the marine science professor, such warnings are important for local governments to soften further economic blows like additional losses in revenue. According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC), tourists will face a host province with a grand total of P263.5 million worth of production losses as almost 17,000 fisherfolk across Calabarzon and Mimaropa have been impacted by the oil spill. Dr. Rodriguez was also right in containing the economic effects of the oil spill to ease the cleanup efforts in the region.
In an instant, the livelihood of residents in Mimaropa and other nearby provinces who were affected by the oil spill came to an end. Studies even show that the fastest cleanup would still take months to a few years before the economy and the environment could ever properly recover from the damages of the disaster. If both cannot be faulted for their judgment, who then must be held responsible?
The tanker MT Princess Empress carrying 800,000 liters or 211,338 gallons of industrial fuel oil, which capsized on February 28 in Naujan town in Oriental Mindoro waters, was only one of thousands of ships sailing around Philippine waters. Found three weeks after it sank, the resulting oil spill caused three years of, and plausibly more, agony for the already beaten economy and livelihood of Mimaropa residents.
Even when surrounded by water, the Philippines cannot find itself investing in more modern ships and other equipment to either guard its territory or provide immediate cleanup efforts in the event of manmade calamities. There should have been at least hundreds of boats, patrolling the shorelines of thousands of Philippine islands, equipped with skimmers or oil scoops at the ready should disasters like oil spills and other sea accidents occur in Philippine waters. Provinces should also have oil booms at their disposal to contain oil spills in their early stages, so as to minimize the damage they could cause.
Additionally, the government must also take measures to ensure that the local economies of provinces are not fragile. Through the science department, it must be made flexible enough by investing in other non-aquatic technologies so that production losses would be avoided once the fisheries and tourism sectors are compromised.
The government should have seen incidents like these coming miles ahead. In fact, this is not even the first time that the country has experienced such a disastrous oil spill.
The sinking of the MT Princess Empress and the oil spill that followed are not just a repeat of the Guimaras oil spill in August 2006. Arguably, the damages now are actually much greater than when the MT Solar 1 which carried 2,000 tons of intermediate fuel oil sank in Guimaras Strait and ravaged the coastlines of the island.
The 2006 Guimaras oil spill should have already served as a lesson for the Philippines to create various countermeasures to such environmental disasters, seeing that 13.6% of the country’s total employment comes from the tourism sector. Laws must be passed and modern ships and equipment procured to ensure the preservation of Filipino livelihoods and prevent a destroyed economy in the years to come.
The mayor is for the economy and health, while the marine scientist is for the environment—no government must make its citizens choose between the two.
Article: John Lloyd A. Aleta
Graphics: Darren C. Waminal
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