Liloan seeks Durano's support vs. ship repair facility in Liloan town

CEBU, Philippines - The municipal council of Liloan has approved a resolution which requests fifth district Rep. Ramon “Red” Durano VI to assist the town prosecute the criminal, civil, administrative, and environmental cases the town has filed against a ship repair facility in the town for alleged violation of environmental laws and ordinances.

A separate resolution also adopted by the Council of Liloan asking the support of Governor Gwen Garcia of the legal action filed by the municipality against the same company.

Clothed with Sanggunian Resolution No. 2011-100, Liloan town Mayor Vincent Franco D. Frasco has filed with the courts criminal, civil, administrative and environmental cases against Michael Slipways, Inc., for continuously operating a ship repair facility without a business permit and in violation of environmental laws.

The council resolution said the Revised Zoning Ordinance of the municipality reclassifies into tourism zone the area over which the ship repair facility is conducting its business, principally because it is located at the Suba River and right at the mouth of Silot Bay – areas which are considered hereby as top tourism sites.

The reclassification was also grounded on environmental concerns, chief of which is the presence – along the same side of Suba River – of the University of San Carlos Marine Biology Experimental Station, which conducts studies of marine organisms that are plentiful in the waters of Silot Bay and Suba River.

Aside from posing a tourism and environmental threat, the facility operates over and above the objection of nearby households, some of whom complain from respiratory illnesses caused, or whose condition are made worse, by the dust and noise pollution normally generated in a ship repair facility.

The resolution further said tests conducted on the quality of the seawaters adjoining the ship repair facility showed contamination of used oil that, in no time at all, if left unchecked, would banish the living organisms from their natural habitat in Suba River and Silot Bay – along with the hope of cashing in on the tourism opportunity these gifts of nature allow.

It further said that so many times in the past that the attention of the management were formally called to these infractions to the environment and people, but the calls were simply ignored as nothing but mere complaints unworthy of neither its attention nor time. - THE FREEMAN