Manila gives ultimatum to oil firms

Pilipinas Shell, Petron and Caltex have until midnight tonight to scale down their operations in Pandacan or be declared as doing business illegally, Manila Mayor Lito Atienza said yesterday.

"We gave (the oil firms) a six-month extension under our (memorandum of) understanding and another three months… but they have not shown genuine effort and sincerity to comply with the commitments," Atienza said in a statement.

"By midnight (of) April 30, the three oil firms in Pandacan would not anymore be operating legally," he added.

The mayor said the city government gave the three oil firms ample time and opportunity to comply with the memorandum of understanding they signed on June 26, 2002.

Under the memorandum, the three oil firms are supposed to dismantle 28 fuel storage tanks containing highly flammable substances and reduce their area of operations to one common depot. They are also supposed to construct a linear park, which will act as a safety buffer zone between the oil depot and the residential areas in Pandacan.

The city of Manila, in return, issued a permit allowing the oil firms to operate until December 31, 2002.

However, by January this year, the city government found that only 14 out of the 28 tanks have been dismantled, the safety buffer zone was incomplete, and the firms have not reduced their operations to one common depot.

The city government granted another three-month extension to the oil firms, but found that as of yesterday, only five more tanks have been dismantled. The park is still incomplete and there is no common depot.

The city government and oil firms entered into a memorandum of understand after the city council passed Ordinance 8027, which reclassified Pandacan from a heavy industrial zone into a commercial-residential one. This prohibits the operation of an oil terminal in the area.

Last Friday, the three oil firms separately filed cases with the Manila Regional Trial Court questioning the validity of the ordinance, and asking for a temporary restraining order to stop the city government from implementing the ordinance. – Cecille Suerte Felipe