The beauty of our marine resources is not immediately obvious to most of the population, especially if they are not near the sea or are not sea lovers.
Most often, those who really get to see and appreciate our seascape and underwater marine resources are those who have trained to scuba dive. Likewise, fisherfolk who reap the bounty of our seas are immediately affected should any activity disrupt their productivity.
Thus, fully appreciating our seascape and marine resources is lost on most of the population.
But for those who have had the good fortune to witness the underwater beauty of our country, they would likely be passionate in ensuring the protection of our marine resources and would be honestly concerned of any news that it would somehow be disturbed by economic activity in the form of underwater cables for communication, power generation, fuel or liquefied natural gas.
To be quite honest though, such activity has been going on for years now unknown to most of us, but almost all of us have definitely felt and appreciated such activity in terms of communication for our island nation, power generation, the delivery of much needed fuel and LNG even from as far away as the Malampaya gas source in Palawan, transport of goods, inter-island travel and tourism.
For Luzon, one of the key corridors is the Verde Island Passage (VIP), a strait that spans the provinces of Batangas, Marinduque, Romblon, Oriental Mindoro and Occidental Mindoro.
It is one of the country’s busiest shipping corridors and is an important route for international ports and various oil and gas facilities. The strait is also host to a significant fishing industry, providing livelihood for millions of people.
The strait’s 1.4 million hectares is home to over 1,700 fish species and 300 coral species, forming a biodiversity zone that marine experts have cited as the “center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity.”
As a diver myself, I have seen and experienced the beauty and abundant marine cover and activity of the VIP, even though as I have said, it has seen the growth of activity along that corridor without any untoward event so far.
Last Tuesday, May 7, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Energy (DOE) entered into a first-of-its-kind partnership with three of the country’s top conglomerates to protect and preserve the VIP.
Sabin Aboitiz, representing Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV), Manuel Pangilinan of Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) and Ramon Ang of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) all pledged to support the government’s environmental and community development efforts for the VIP in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing at the Rigodon Ballroom of the Manila Peninsula in Makati.
AEV, MPIC and SMC’s involvement in the VIP is part of the DENR’s effort to utilize the resources of the three conglomerates to help monitor activity along that corridor and assure stakeholders of sustainable access and use of the coastal and marine resources of the involved areas.
The three conglomerates would, using their own finances, work with local governments, non-government organizations, international development groups, experts, and coastal communities, among others, to support projects that promote the conservation, protection and enhancement of marine resources of the VIP.
The partnership would also help establish marine science research stations in the corridor to advance science, policy and practices needed by the industry.
The historic initiative, according to DENR Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga, “heralds a new era of public-private collaboration.”
Energy Secretary Raphael P.M. Lotilla acknowledged the importance of the MOU at this point as the three conglomerates join forces to support the government’s sustainable energy goals.
Last March, Aboitiz Power Corp., MPIC’s Meralco Powergen Corp. and SMC’s San Miguel Global Power Holdings Corp. collaborated to invest in the country’s first and most expansive integrated liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Batangas. The integrated LNG facility is projected to significantly increase the country’s power supply with over 2,500 MW of generation capacity once fully operational and supports the government’s goal of lowering emissions and increasing natural gas’ share in the country’s power generation mix to 26 percent by 2040.
That project mandate, Lotilla acknowledged, would involve laying down transmission lines. Thus, the MOU would ensure that all those concerned in that area would work together to ensure that no irreversible damage is done.
Aboitiz, in response said “ we are not experts in the environment...our role is to support the experts and provide funding to search for talent to give us advice on what to do and not to do.”
The MVP Group, on the other hand, as Sec. Loyzaga said, already has done environmental work and provides continuing support to the coastal communities in that area through its MPIC Foundation’s Shore It Up program.
Pangilinan further said they would help establish proper monitoring devices to check for effluent, gasses or water discharge that could increase the temperature to marine life, as well as monitor storms and traffic that traverse the VIP, and human induced intervention, such as dynamite fishing, “which is part and parcel of the package to enable the wholistic protection of the passage.”
SMC’s Ang, for his part, pointed out that while the Ilijan Power Plant has been operating in the VIP corridor for the past 25 years there has never been any untoward incident. He thus vowed, “rest assured that in the next 25 years, we will do everything to protect the environment in this area.”
In my own experience of diving in that area and interacting with the local community, most of the damage has been done by illegal dynamite fishing which I have heard and felt while actually underwater.
Likewise, we have also seen the effect of illegal discharge of waste from passing cargo ships who illegally pass through the strait.
Even the local communities and resorts in the area are just as guilty of polluting that environment, evidenced by the amount of garbage and different kinds of plastic we see underwater and collect during the annual coastal clean up day.