The beautiful island of Guimaras, located in central Philippines, is under a state of calamity. More than 26,000 people who depend on fishing suddenly lost their livelihood after tanker MT Solar 1 sank in 3,000 ft of water with some two million liters of industrial fuel. Some 50,000 gallons of oil leaked from the tanker which still lies 900 meters underwater. The slick has already polluted 20 barangays covering 220 km of coastline and destroyed 454 hectares of mangroves and 58 hectares of seaweed farms and coral reefs containing popular dive sites in Guimaras. The oil spill has been described as the worst in the history of the Southeast Asian country. It is estimated that it would take over a year to clean up the pollution.
As long as society depends on oil and petroleum products, spills are a substantial risk. "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure", so the saying goes. There should be coordinated international efforts to prevent oil spills and avoid potential damage to human health and the environment. However, once a spill occurs, the best approach for containing and controlling the spill is to respond quickly and in the most organized manner. Understanding environmental impacts along with contingency planning is needed to mitigate the effects of oil spills. There are already many national and international laws attempting to control and contain major oil spills, but still they happen.
In nature, there are neither no rewards nor punishment – only consequences. We can’t prevent natural disasters, but we certainly can prevent manmade disasters, from oil spills to blood spills.