While we’re still looking for windows and pieces of our houses that were blown or swept by flood waters, even still drying our clothes and reeling from the impacts of typhoon Carina, we’re facing another catastrophe due to the oil spill amounting to 1.4Million liters from MT Terra Nova.

The oil spill deprived us of the chance to fish after the storm. We have no food on our tables and no immediate source of income.

Because this incident being not the first time in our province, we know what will happen in the next months. Like past oil spills in our municipal waters, the oil would contaminate or kill fish, fish eggs, larvae, corals algae, seaweed, mangroves, plants and other marine organisms. Birds who have come into physical contact with oil slicks can get weighed down by it and drown. Coated in oil, animals can be killed by poisoning or suffocation. Then, with our environment disrupted, our livelihood is affected.

In the last 40 years, more than 300 major oil spills occurred in Manila Bay involving domestic, local, and foreign vessels. Many of these spills happened in the Bataan waters.

Before this oil spill, Manila Bay has long been suffering due to destructive activities such as reclamation, seabed quarrying, and coal and other industrial pollution.

The oil spill compounds the already dire state of the marine ecosystem compromising the present and future sources of our food and livelihood.

Amidst this human-made disaster, who would again suffer the most brunt? Unfairly, it is always the small fishers and the communities who depend on the seas for daily subsistence. Worse, the recent typhoon has already prevented them from going fishing. As if their suffering is not yet enough, they are now prevented from doing anything in the coastal waters due to the oil spill by local authorities without offering any alternatives. While the corporations can manage to move on after this oil spill, Manila Bay, in its critical state now will further deteriorate its coastal resources and the quality of its habitat. Meanwhile, how would the communities and the fishers and their families that depend on it sustain their daily needs?

We are expecting government agencies like the DENR, BFAR, and LGUs to get to the bottom of this huge crisis, and ensure that regulatory and environmental standards are met without selling out the interests of the communities and the environment. Likewise, ensure the proper clean up and rehabilitation of pollution and the environmental damage that this oil spill would have cost. There is no amount of false information allaying fears of affected communities can cover up the devastation that this oil spill has caused.

We, the Nuclear/Coal Free Bataan Movement (NCFBM) urged the company, the operator of MT Terra Nova tanker to clean up their mess at their own expense and not put the marine resources and lives at risk. Hence, we are awaiting the DENR’s definitive moves concerning the evolving disaster that these oil spill incidents have caused.

We also demand immediate and and adequate compensation for our environmental and economic losses based on the Polluter’s Principle, Oil Pollution Compensation Act of 2007, civil and other laws. Bataan fisherfolks and residents who depend on the rich marine life of Manila bay are in the frontlines of this disaster. We must receive the first aid and be compensated not just for the immediate losses but also for the lost income opportunities during spill-related fish bans long-term damages traceable to the oil spill.

Press Statement
July 26, 2024

For Reference:
Edlyn Rosales
Chairperson, PANGISDA-Bataan
+639075643169

Efren Dominico
Chairperson, Pinagkaisang Samahan ng mga Mangingisda sa Lamao (PINSAMALA)
+63 9054372408

Derek Cabe
Coordinator, Nuclear/Coal-Free Bataan Movement
+639237298769