FOCUS: Oil spill soils island paradise in central Philippines

LA PAZ, Philippines, Aug. 25 Kyodo

The turquoise waters surrounding this island province in the central Philippines glisten in the sunlight, hills are teeming with thick foliage, cliffs and stunning rock formations meet the sea, and coves and sandbars dot the island.

But the paradise-like beauty of Guimaras Island is slowly being blackened by oil from a tanker that sank two weeks ago, polluting large swathes of fishing grounds, damaging the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen and taking a toll on the island's rich marine resources.

From atop, green isles and islets are surrounded by the rainbow-like reflection of the oil slick, which has traveled about 250 kilometers of coastline since the oil tanker carrying 2 million liters of bunker fuel sank Aug. 11 in deep waters south of Guimaras, located about 470 km south of Manila.

Some of the oil sludge is being carried by waves and wind to the shore, coating roots, trunks and leaves of mangroves and bushes in swamplands, harming seagrass beds and corals unique to the island and trapping slow-moving marine creatures like crabs and prawns.

So far, the Coast Guard has estimated that about 350,000 liters of bunker oil have already leaked from the tanker Solar 1 and warned that about 200 liters of oil is spewing out every hour.

The slick, which is the worst to hit the country, has affected at least 26,000 people who largely depend on fishing, 500 hectares of mangroves and 60 hectares of seaweed plantations in three towns of Guimaras Island, and has started to pollute the waters of two nearby provinces as of Friday, Guimaras Gov. Joaquin Carlos Rahman Nava said.

Nava said the economic cost of the spill is beyond imagination, adding that it may throw many residents into poverty.

The 1,143-hectare marine reserve on Taklong Island, which serves as a breeding ground for more than a hundred species of fish and has some of the most diverse flora and fauna in the country, is covered with oil.

During low tide, mangroves in the marine sanctuary are covered with a thick sludge about 60 centimeters high and some sea creatures such as coral snakes and small crabs lie dead in the muck.

Nava said the marine reserve has a ''very fragile ecosystem'' and that the death of mangroves and corals there also means the loss of a rich fishing ground that will affect thousands of fishermen in the Guimaras Province.

Residents in affected villages, disaster workers and volunteers tried to contain the oil spill, scooping up oil by hand, removing oil debris and shoveling sand stained by the sludge.

Drums of oil gathered by workers and volunteers stand a few meters away from the sea and sacks of contaminated sand are lined up along the seashore in La Paz, a coastal village in the town of Nueva Valencia, the hardest-hit area of the province, waiting to be treated or disposed of. However, the government has not identified a suitable dumping site for the mess.

''We have not cleaned up the oil spill technically. We just gathered them,'' Nava said, adding that oil is leaking out of some sacks into the porous sand.

Officials said the cleanup could take up to three years. They said Petron Corp., the largest oil refiner in the Philippines that chartered the ship, has been warned of legal action if the cleanup does not make a significant breakthrough, including the re-floating of the sunken tanker, which still carries a sizeable amount of oil in its compartments, in five days.

Capt. Luis Tuason, Coast Guard district commander in Western Visayas, said oil continues to leak out of the tanker two weeks after it sank and will continue to wreak havoc on marine life and coastal areas as long as it remains underwater.

The Coast Guard estimates that the ship lies at a depth of 900 meters.

Coast Guard chief Vice Adm. Arthur Gosingan said time is running out to raise the ship in time to prevent further damage. ''I hope none of the remaining tanks will rupture,'' he said.

''We have lost our main source of living. I don't know if we can ever fish again,'' said Olivia Evangelista, 45, wife of a fisherman living in the coastal village of Nueva Valencia.

She said her family largely depends on the 200-peso (about $4) payment that Petron gives them daily for doing cleanup work along the shoreline.

Health officials have advised residents not to eat anything from the polluted waters, leaving residents largely dependent on government food rations, which they claim to be insufficient for their needs and forced them to ignore warnings.

In many areas, fishermen were putting up nets with grass and bamboo to block the sludge from reaching the shores while Coast Guard personnel and private companies employed spill booms, oil dispersant and rubber boats to contain the slick.

Many people are complaining about the stench that smells like burnt tires and gasoline filling the air of coastal communities.

''I can hardly breathe. I feel like I am suffocating and my head is aching more often than before,'' said Jim Tayupon, a fisherman in Nueva Valencia.

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