Blame for gas pipe leak is everywhere

WHO’S TO BLAME?: The gas leak from a 117-kilometer Batangas-Manila supply pipeline that forced the evacuation of some 80 tenants of a 22-storey condominium building in Makati was an accident waiting to happen.

The question now is who should be held responsible for the actual damage and the repair of structures affected by the exploratory diggings around the pipeline at the base of the Magallanes flyover in Makati.

A noted University of the Philippines geologist hired by the Makati city government told a Senate inquiry yesterday that the 50-year-old pipeline leaked at a point where the stress of the massive weight of the busy flyover was pressing on it.

The pipeline was laid long before the Magallanes interchange was built in 1967. The gasline owner, the First Philippine Industrial Corp., said it informed the then Ministry of Public Works, but the advice was apparently ignored.

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UNDER STRESS: It was a good thing the FPIC, through its officer-in-charge Anthony Mabassa, apologized “categorically and unconditionally” yesterday to the condominium tenants before the discussion could spread to security and other concerns.

There have been fears that the Senate inquiry and the debate in media would expose in great detail the vulnerability details of the solitary fuel lifeline of the national capital.

The FPIC’s putting on record its readiness to pay for actual and collateral damage could result in a cooling off of offended parties and the toning down of the public discussion.

The FPIC made the stand even as Dr. Carlos Arcilla, director of the UP-National Institute of Geological Sciences, said the interchange’s weight proved too much for the gas pipe lying just 18 inches under the structure’s reinforced concrete foundation.

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QUESTIONS: Since the pipeline was built with government permission and supervision well ahead of the Magallanes interchange, there could be another round of debate on who is responsible for what.

What provisions were made in the interchange’s design to prevent the superstructure, with its expected moving load, from damaging the passive pipeline under it?

The pipeline, laid down in 1967, became operational in 1969. The interchange was built in the middle ’70s.

Another puzzler is why the leaking oil was found only on the fourth lower basement of the West Tower building – around 120 meters away from the tiny holes where the seepage occurred.

Why did the leaking oil products flow only to that building, bypassing other structures along the way? Even assuming the leak went that far for still unknown reason, are not buildings’ multi-level basements supposed to be leak-proofed?

Did the Makati city engineer’s office approve the building’s design and inspect it before occupancy?

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WRONG INFO: It was obvious that the FPIC apologized also because it acted defensively earlier on the basis of inaccurate information.

Its president, Leonides Garde, now admits that he was initially convinced by the foreign experts they had hired to conduct several integrity tests last October that the pipeline had no leak.

Garde said they were “misled” and “totally convinced” by the experts’ findings made after Ground Penetrating Radar surveys and two in-line inspection runs that the pipeline had no crack or leak.

On the other hand, the team of Arcilla bored at even intervals some 40 holes in the area and three more in the vicinity of West Tower. The high level of gas emission near the interchange led them to five pinholes 2-3 meters from where the flyover’s heavy footing sat on the pipeline casing.

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BYPASS PIPE: Because of the leak and fears of compromising the integrity of the Magallanes interchange, some sectors suggest the closure of the pipeline, a knee-jerk reaction whose economic and security implications are incalculable.

The pipeline that connects the Shell refinery and the Chevron oil farm in Batangas to the depot in Pandacan is the cheapest, fastest and most direct route at the moment for transporting petroleum products to the nation’s capital.

Closing the pipeline would mean trucking the products overland or transporting them by other means. This would drive their retail price to prohibitive levels.

The FPIC said it was considering a bypass pipe around the Magallanes interchange. That would reportedly take at least one month to build, but considering the presence of structures, including buildings, it might take at least two months.

Whatever steps are deemed necessary, these should be attended by sobriety and a conscious consideration of public welfare, not personal or commercial interests.

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ERRATA: I must hasten to make some corrections and clarifications to my four-part series on Ninoy Aquino in Boston during the state visit to the US of President Marcos in September 1982.

First, contrary to what I erroneously said in my first installment of Nov. 7, martial rule was already lifted when Marcos visited Washington, DC. It had to be, otherwise President Ronald Reagan would not have welcomed him.

This error was corrected in the concluding installment of Nov. 14, but some readers may have missed it.

Second, it was in 1985 that Sen. Paul Laxalt came to Manila on an errand for President Reagan, but it was in 1986 (not 1985) that the senator from Nevada told Marcos to “cut and cut cleanly” when the ailing dictator asked him for advice.

I apologize for those and other less glaring errors. Each of those articles was written just the day before it was to come out. That, I know, is not an excuse, but I hope it explains the attendant time constraint.

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