Squeezing every liter of oil spill for publicity

It is a pitiful sight to see our politicians who have been hard put to literally squeeze publicity from every liter borne by the oil spill tragedy in Guimaras island, and President Arroyo is no exception. Last Monday, the President was hopping mad over the latest foul up by her subalterns at Malacañang Palace in the faulty carrying out of her instructions. Mrs. Arroyo wanted to go to a beach resort in Guimaras to show to the Filipinos and the international community that the incident was limited to the immediate areas around the site where the oil tanker had sunk. This was her way of highlighting the fact that only seven of the 24 beach resorts in Guimaras were actually damaged by the unfortunate incident.

Her famous presidential temper only cooled down the next day after she read the front page of The Philippine STAR that "17 out of 24 beach resorts in Guimaras remain oil slick-free." Mrs. Arroyo specifically instructed Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Joseph Ace Durano to continue with this information drive to help the people of Guimaras quickly recover from this ecological disaster that has already wrought damage to the tourism’s industry in the province.

Nobody, of course, from the Palace’s advance party who went to Guimaras wanted to take responsibility for this latest foul up as the presidential temper erupted anew before the eyes and ears of the media. Mrs. Arroyo has every reason to get angry since she had already inspected and had seen the worst hit areas during her first visit to Guimaras in La Paz, Nueva Valencia last Friday. Because she had only a short visit, she decided to fly back to Guimaras last Monday afternoon to preside in the meeting of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) in order to assist and to assess the government’s move to mitigate the damage caused by this ecological disaster.

Mrs. Arroyo actually wanted to take a dip and swim just to assuage the public that the waters are safe for swimming in these oil spill-free beaches in Guimaras. But since she was taken to this oil spill-affected beach resort, she could not do so or else she too, might suffer from skin irritation.

The President understandably got upset when she and the media were instead taken to Costa Aguada resort in Inampulugan, Guimaras which was among those reached by the oil spill. She felt aghast to see the heavy traces of oil slick along the shore. She had no choice, though, but to stay overnight at Costa Aguada with about a dozen of the Palace reporters. They were served seafood which local authorities vouched were safe to eat, along with fish caught in the northwestern part of Guimaras. And to save Guimaras’ image as tourist attraction, she appealed to media to call it "Solar I oil spill" instead of calling it "Guimaras oil spill."

It was a good thing that Palace reporters were still able to file and send their stories to Manila despite some communications problem in the area. It was a very costly PR undertaking for Petron Corp. to bring members of the national media at the disaster site and spend for it. Petron has to bear it since it chartered the ill-fated oil tanker MT Solar I. The tanker sank after being tossed by big waves off Guimaras last Aug. 11. Being a part owner the national government has to support Petron in this information drive as part of the clean-up operations that Petron has to undertake.

Petron paid for the airfare of Palace reporters who were flown from Manila to Iloilo via commercial airlines. From there, they were flown by two Air Force Huey helicopters to Costa Aguada. The Cabinet members were taken to the site by the presidential Black Hawk chopper. Senate reporters, though, were not as lucky when they joined Senate president Manuel Villar Jr. who flew to Guimaras also last Friday to inspect the extent of the oil spill accident.

The more than 44 members of the Senate media and 30 or so, of Senate staffers also took commercial airlines for less than an hour that took them to Iloilo. From there, Villar and the reporters were ferried to Guimaras by the BRP Batangas Coast Guard ship to take them to the nearest port going to Bgy. Tando in Nueva Valencia, one of the coastal towns in the province that was severely covered by oil sludge. They took a 30-minute jeep ride on dirt road to reach the shoreline just to see the local folks, assisted by Petron experts, in manually cleaning up the place. What made it worse for the Senate reporters was when they have to get back to the Coast Guard ship using pump boats. And because it was raining, they were tossed by rough waves at sea. By the time they were back on land, they were bone weary to send stories way past their deadlines.

But since President Arroyo was also there in Guimaras that day, Villar did not gain any media mileage. What I cannot understand in this Villar-led trip was that there was also on the same day a joint Congressional oversight committee on environment led by Sen. Pia Cayetano and Rep. Miles Roces (LP, Manila) who flew to the oil spill stricken areas in Guimaras. And what did these trips to Guimaras achieve for the lawmakers? Did they have to go there just to realize the need to legislate a law making it a requirement henceforth to use double-hulled instead of single-hulled ships for fuel tankers?

As for the President, she is returning next week to Guimaras before she embarks on her next round of official travels abroad and be away for almost two weeks. She told her Cabinet especially those directly involved in the Task Force Guimaras, to stay in the province, to expedite the clean-up and rehabilitation efforts of the government. But experts say it would take about one to three years to save Guimaras from this environmental degradation.

We are now on the first day of the "ber" months but we’re still experiencing rainy days. When Solar I sank, there was not even any typhoon or bad weather condition. The initial findings of the Marine Board Inquiry into this incident points to human error by the ship’s captain. His license has reportedly expired and other violations were coming out in the investigations. In the meantime, Filipinos have to pay for the extra costs spent by our politicians out there to squeeze publicity from this oil slick disaster.

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