No commercial fishing in the Visayan Seas?

Here’s something to refresh your memory. Exactly 17 years ago, the mammoth super oil tanker, the Exxon Valdez, floundered off Prince William Sound in Alaska and struck Bligh Reef, spilling 11 to 30 million gallons of crude oil into some 1,900 kilometers of Alaskan Coastline and thus became known as the world’s worst environmental disaster. The direct result of this environmental disaster spelled the demise of a quarter of a million of animals and sea creatures, including sea otters, bald eagles and harbor seals, and contaminated the Alaskan coastline for 20 years.

Back in those days, oil tankers were single-hulled vessels, but after the Exxon Valdez incident, many single-hulled oil tankers were scrapped and changed to double-hulled vessels, which provided better protection from oil spills. The Exxon Valdez was fixed and renamed Sea River Mediterranean and I’m sure you’ll remember that the last time we saw this ship was on the Kevin Costner movie "Waterworld." Incidentally, the skipper of the Exxon Valdez, Capt. Joseph Hazelwood, was found guilty of negligence and a settlement of $1.1 billion was rejected by a federal judge.

Why am I mentioning the Exxon Valdez? Well, I just got a call from our good friend Alan Ortiz of Transco inviting me to Boracay for the inauguration of Transco’s submarine cable that will serve that world famous island. The first thing that came into my mind was: What ever happened to the oil spill that threatened the pristine white beaches of Boracay?

How could we forget that power barge 106 belonging to the National Power Corp. (NPC) ran aground and spilled 195,000 liters of bunker fuel off Semirara Island on Dec. 18, 2005. Perhaps because Christmas was just around the corner, the media didn’t give this incident any real attention until a month later when the Coast Guard was having difficulty containing the spilled crude oil. We first wrote about this incident in our Jan.13, 2006 column.

Up to now, I’m still wondering whether this oil spill has been contained or not, as there seems to be no one covering that beat in Semirara, which is a mere 60 kilometers from Boracay island. While this oil spill is nothing compared to the Exxon Valdez disaster, what I find disturbing is that NPC officials were quick to say that they would pay for the clean-up of the oil spill. Now, didn’t we say that it is not the NPC execs paying for this but the taxpayer? If you ask me, that negligent tugboat captain should also be facing charges for this oil spill. We all need this accountability!

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Talking about saving the environment, there is a move by a group called the Visayan Sea Squadron led by legal environmentalist Atty. Antonio Oposa ,to close the entire Visayan Sea from commercial fishing to "let the marine life rest". The group is asking the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (Bfar) to effect this closure, which of course was vehemently opposed by a group called the Northern Cebu Shipowners Association (NCSA), most of whom were from Bantayan Island.

There is no question that the Visayan Seas is over fished, especially by commercial fishing trawlers whose nets often kill or destroy the habitat of many sea creatures. In many Western countries, hunting and fishing are allowed only in certain seasons so that the fish stocks can replenish themselves. But here, fishing is an everyday exercise without any let up.

To show support to this cause, Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia, Iloilo Gov. Neil Tupas, Negros Occidental Gov. Joseph Marañon and then Environment Secretary Michael Defensor signed a commitment to restore and preserve the wealth of the Visayan Seas in March of last year. Because of the support of this political leaders, there is a lot of apprehension now that the Visayan Seas would soon be closed.

I, too, support this very noble goal of the Visayan Sea Squadron because if we do not act now, in the very near future our children won’t have anything to fish anymore. So, the big question is how far should we go to close the Visayan Seas? Just take a good look at how many forest guards we have per square kilometer of rain forest? I’m sure that the very energetic group of Bantay Dagat Program of Jojo dela Victoria can cover the coastline of Cebu province, but how about the other islands?

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This Sunday, March 26, is the 61st anniversary of the Talisay Landings, often dubbed as the Liberation of Cebu. On this day, the 7th Fleet’s Task Force Victor II, with some 59 ships from Leyte, entered the Bohol Strait and brought the American Division led by Maj. Gen. William Arnold, seven combat units and 31 one service units into the shores of what is now Tangke, Talisay City, 12 kilometers north of Cebu City.

I’m writing this piece which I took from the book "Under the Southern Cross — The Saga of the Americal Division" by Capt. Francis Cron, published by the Combat Forces Press, Washington D.C. so that our people will know a part of Philippine history, which unfortunately is not even taught in any history class in any school in this country.

The invasion of Cebu was unlike the Leyte Landing on Red Beach (which was bombarded by the big Naval guns of the battleships that supported the invasion) because the Talisay Landing was virtually a walk in the park, the first wave of 15 Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT’s) coming ashore in Talisay without a shot being fired by the Japanese. But 10 of the 15 LVTs struck a minefield and were either disabled or destroyed. Eight American soldiers died, while 39 were wounded, most of whom were inside the LVTs and caused a traffic jam on the beachhead.

After the beaches were cleared of mines, the landings continued and Talisay was secured. According to Cron, the American Division discovered on the beach in Tangke, Talisay "the most elaborate and effective beach defenses installed by the Japanese that the Americans encountered in all their operations in the Philippines." Actually the first encounter between the US forces and the Japanese was in Pardo, which the Americans later found to be a Japanese delaying tactic. Nothing much happened the rest of March 26th but a more intensified battle was awaiting the American Division in the days and months to follow before Cebu was freed.

Actually, the island of Cebu was liberated only on Aug. 28, 1945 when Lt. General Sadashi Kataoka, Commander of the Japanese 35th Army, surrendered his remaining forces of 2,667 officers and men to the Americans in Ilihan, Northern Cebu. We’ll write more about this in future columns.

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow entitled "Straight from the Sky" every Monday in Metro Cebu’s Channel 15 on SkyCable at 8 p.m.