DENR gets “Kalabasa Award” for extending Tañon drillings

A group of fishermen in Cebu yesterday gave the “kalabasa award” to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in recognition of the department’s 41-day extension of the oil exploration along the Tañon Strait.

The Panaghiusa ng Gagmay’ng Mangingisda sa Sugbo group, also known as Pamana Sugbo, has been fighting to stop the oil exploration in the area because of its dire effects to the fishing livelihood of the people of Pinamungahan and Aloguinsan.

Still the DENR granted to JAPEX, the project contractor, an extension of 41 days to continue its exploration prompting the Pamana Sugbo group to stage a picket yesterday outside the DENR-7 office where it also awarded the government agency the “kalabasa award.”

Wilbert Dimol, spokesperson of Pamana Sugbo, said they have been requesting the DENR for the results of the latter’s monitoring of the effects of the oil exploration, and asked the government to provide them alternative livelihood in lieu of their dislocated source of income.

Dimol said that Pamana Sugbo had also demanded the DENR to explain the bases of its 41-day extension of the exploration.

Regional director Alan Aranquez of the DENR-Environmental Management Bureau, for his part, said that the result of the monitoring are ready but the bureau is still working on when to release it. — Phoebe Jen Indino/RAE