Task Force Hanjin members quit after death of 13th worker

IBA, Zambales – Members of a task force created to ensure the safety and welfare of workers in the $1.6-billion South Korean shipyard project in Subic resigned yesterday after another worker died in the facility over the weekend.

Former vice governor Ramon Lacbain Jr., chairman of the provincial government’s Task Force Hanjin, said they resigned to allow Gov. Amor Deloso a free hand to pick new members for a new task force.

“It must be a new task force that will fight for the rights and welfare of the workers of Hanjin shipbuilding project in Subic Bay and demand the company’s strict compliance with occupational health and safety standards of the Philippines to ensure that zero death and accident is achieved,” Lacbain said.

The resignation followed the death of 31-year-old Benjie Gamolo last Saturday after he was fatally hit by a steel beam while at work at the assembly shop of Hanjin Heavy Industries Corp.-Phils.

Gamolo succumbed to injuries the following day, making him the 13th fatality at the shipbuilding facility since it was established in Subic in 2006.

Deloso appointed Lacbain and other officials to a task force to monitor and ensure the safety of the workers at the shipbuilding facility following a spate of accidents involving its workers.

Lacbain urged Deloso to appoint more qualified and technical experts in the task force from the broad segment of society.

“There is a need to mobilize the people from various sectors, either individually or through civil society organizations, so that they will be involved in finding and acting on solutions to various issues and concerns affecting their families, their livelihood, their basic human rights and their environment brought about by the Hanjin shipbuilding project,” the appointees stated in their resignation letter to Deloso.

Lacbain said Deloso should authorize the task force to monitor the safety of the workers in other facilities at Subic Bay “most especially in the light of the influx of so many investors to the detriment of the environment and the people.”

Lacbain said he and those who have resigned from the task force would continue their advocacies and programs through the newly formed People’s Task Force on Hanjin & Subic Bay Inc., a non-government organization (NGO).