Korean coast guard joining oil spill cleanup

MANILA, Philippines — A Korean Coast Guard team will arrive in the Philippines on Monday to help in ongoing efforts to contain the massive oil spill from the sunken motor tanker in waters off Naujan, Oriental Mindoro.

At the same time, the United States government announced an additional P10-million aid to support oil spill management and environmental assessment amid the sinking of the MT Princess Empress.

“On Monday, the South Korean experts will arrive at the headquarters of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG),” Rear Admiral Armand Balilo, PCG spokesman, told reporters at a forum yesterday.

“They will make an evaluation and, hopefully, they could also offer a final solution and an ROV (remotely operated vehicle) to end this problem,” Balilo, speaking in Filipino, added.

In a statement, the PCG said the Korean government has also committed to providing oil spill response equipment, including 20 tons of sorbet pads and snares, 1,000 meters of solid flotation curtain boom and 2,000 sets of personal protective equipment.

Balilo said the Philippine government is now heading to the second level of the oil spill response operations, which is to cover the 23 oil-leaking areas of the sunken Princess Empress that can only be done through another ROV.

He explained that the ROV from Japan was used to locate the sunken tanker, but is not capable of patching the oil-leaking areas as it was designed only for conducting surveys.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council is looking for alternatives, while the PCG has coordinated with the US Coast Guard if they could provide the ROV needed.

“Just be rest assured that we’re doing everything. We’re doing a collaboration with other agencies. We are asking help from other countries,” said Balilo, who mentioned the coast guards of the US and South Korea.

P10 M for cleanup

Through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US government is providing an additional P10 million ($183,700) worth of assistance to the provincial government of Oriental Mindoro in response to the oil slick.

In a visit to Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro on Thursday, USAID Philippines mission director Ryan Washburn announced that the additional support will be used to train fisherfolk displaced by the fishing ban so they can deploy as citizen scientists to conduct coastal habitat assessments in the province.

Through its partnership with the ABS-CBN Foundation, USAID will also assess and monitor the impact of the oil spill on the coastal communities in Verde Island Passage.

Washburn handed over the first batch of personal protective equipment, hygiene kits and spill cleaning supplies to Oriental Mindoro Gov. Humerlito Dolor and observed ongoing cleanup and assessment activities in the municipality of Pola.?Earlier this month, through its partnership with the World Food Program, USAID supported the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in transporting 20,000 food packs for families affected by the oil spill.

The US government is actively assisting the response to the oil spill with a team of experts from the US Coast Guard and the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration arriving in Oriental Mindoro earlier this week to assist in assessing affected areas and providing subject matter expertise on effective methods to contain and clean up the spill.

Divers needed

Yesterday, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla requested the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) to send divers to assist in measuring the rate of oil spillage from the sunken vessel.

“We want divers to come down to be able to calculate the rate of spillage to the ocean to know how much oil is pouring out of the tanker; and we asked the OCD to mobilize some of the divers of the Armed Forces,” Remulla told reporters.

He also revealed that the government has hired a consultant to calculate the remaining amount of oil in the vessel in a more efficient manner. No CPC, no sail.

Meanwhile, the PCG will strictly implement a “No CPC, No sail” policy, which means that sea transportation systems will be required to present their updated certificate of public convenience (CPC) before being allowed to sail.

Balilo said this move on the part of the PCG is aimed at avoiding the same indiscretion that allowed MT Princess Empress to set out to sea without the proper documentation that guarantees a vessel is fit to sail.

The Maritime Industry Authority had said that the CPC issued to Princess Empress was not authentic. – Michael Punongbayan, Neil Jayson Servallos, Bella Cariaso, Paolo Romero