This annual campus tradition was started last 2000 as part of the university’s foundation day. This year, the event was co-sponsored by HERO TV, the first and only Tagalog-dubbed anim channel in the Philippines and the Home of the New Anim Revolution. HERO TV will celebrate its first anniversary on November 18 at the World Trade Center.

“Hysteria is a unique fashion show with a noble purpose.? The organizers really exerted so much effort in designing the costumes,” HERO TV segment producer Carlo Jan Landrito said.

Fashion design professors Fe Nuguid Evangelio and Richard Legaspi stressed that their college would like to show their distinction coupled with a firm marketing strategy in line with the celebration of the 60th UE Foundation Day.

Supporting Evangelio’s and Legaspi’s classes were UE CFA Dean Arch. Celino Santiago, College Secretary Angelito De Guzman, Ms. Ellen Villanueva for the live video, Mr. Rodel Pea for the photography, Mr. Ruston Banal for the audio-visual presentation, and the rest of the UE CFA faculty.

“The student designers believe that as long as they have hands to hold, a heart that feels, a reminiscence to carry and designs that kills. No challenge will become a barrier that will stop them to create HYSTERIA a fashion show for a cause,” said Joan Punzalan, one of more than a hundred participants in the fashion show.

Hysteria is also sponsored by Red Room Productions, Crystal Clear Mineral Water, Ping-Ping Lechon and Restaurant, Inc., Micro Image Tech, Eurotel, Signus Packaging Corporation and UE Buklod Sining Alumni Society. The proceeds of the show will benefit ABS-CBN Foundation’s projects to help the victims of the Guimaras oil spill.

- Submitted by Red Room Productions at the Pinoyindiecinema pool at yahoogroups.

Petron takes responsibilty for the oil spill as a response to the online petition of Greenpeace. Read the file here. They said they are working with the IOPC for the siphoning of the remaining bunker fuel and are “are focusing their efforts to create alternative livelihood programs” but did not explicitly say how much they are investing on these programs. Siphoning of the bunker fuel is reported to cost around 12 Billion while the IOPC Compensation would amount to 300 million pesos.

Blast from the Past: Take a look at Total Fina’s press release here, where they explicitly enumerated how much they are going to invest for rebuilding communities and the siphoning of the oil from the tanker. Below is the text version:

TOTALFINA will finance the pumping of the Erika – TOTALFINA will set up an emergency fund to assist cleaning up the shore(Dec. 30, 99)

TOTALFINA, which has worked with the authorities since the beginning within the framework of the Polmar Mer and Polmar Terre plans, has accelerated and strengthened its involvement by making the following two commitments:

1. TOTALFINA will finance the pumping of the Erika wreckage

TOTALFINA will directly finance the pumping of the fuel oil contained in the Erika wreckage. This will enable the compensation budget from insurers and the IOPC-International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (which amounts to FRF 1.2 billion or EUR 183 million) to be dedicated first to indemnifying people who have suffered economic damage and to reimbursing costs incurred in cleaning up sea and land pollution. TOTALFINA will provide assistance so that operations are carried out under the best technical conditions and in a timely manner, subject to weather conditions.

2. TOTALFINA will set up a FRF 40 million (EUR 6.1 million) emergency fund to assist cleaning up the shore

This fund will be allocated to two programs conducted in agreement with authorities in the affected districts and regions.

The programs will cover:

• purchase of equipment to collect, store and evacuate pollution,
• provision of qualified teams specialized in cleaning up oil pollution and evacuating waste. TOTALFINA has already contacted several companies in this respect, so that people and technical resources can be provided next week.
  Cleaning up will be done with full respect of the environment. Particular attention will be paid to the work performed on the islands, because of their delicate eco-systems.

TOTALFINA notes that since the accident took place, the Group has promptly answered all requests for specialists, equipment and products from authorities in the affected regions.

TOTALFINA will also put into place programs for restoring the ecological balance with the assistance of local communities and environmental protection organizations. This long-term initiative will begin as soon as the shores are cleaned up.

It was great to have power back after 72 hours since the typhoon razed havoc in Metro Manila. Electricity was out for three long days in the Greenhills area but on the night of the event itself, I believed for a moment that God was not that angry anymore as I was informed by a co-organizer that Meralco’s electricity had flowed like honey once more!

Having no power for that long, it was impossible to imagine the lack of cold beer in convenient stores within proximity. Nevertheless, if Bela Bar was flooded with beer, I would estimate that the amount of beer could have probably touched the edge of my balls. The people had to scavenge for slightly chilled Red Horse beer just so everyone could have a dose of alcohol that they all deserve. The beer could have been frozen cold from where they got it from but due to traffic and distance, the beer temperature had probably altered to a nearly undrinkable state.

After another couple of hours while the nice people from NU 107, Greenpeace and a few other guests were waiting, the bar was being filled slowly as souls came and went as there was some technical delay in officially commencing the event. Although the bottom of the money barrel could still be seen empty, it was somewhat relieving to see some people entering despite that business was slow.

And this was what irked me. A few people, faces of whom I will certainly recall to spit on when I see again, dodged our security measures that they got in for free. I swear I could have heard their guilty thoughts saying, “Who the hell cares about the cause where we got billboard tarpaulins tangled in front of our house’s power lines! I am here for some electricity and fun! Save Guimaras!” and/or “I’m a photographer and I am with a nobody-photographer expecting me inside that I ought to get in for free! Save Guimaras!” and/or “I’m with the band but I have never touched an instrument as passionate as how my mother would play with my organ but we are here to rock the night! Save Guimaras!”

Well, I was perplexed by these people who had the gall to attend an event to raise funds and sneak their way in deliberately and forget about helping the famished families of Guimaras. Yeah, we set it up for them and not for your unneeded presence. This event was for the people whose livelihood and ways of living are as dark as the oil that made the once rich province become void from its natural wonders!

But hey, everything still went ‘well’.

I, on the other hand, got hammered pretty bad that I kept losing track where my camera was every time I tried taking pictures of the bands while chug-a-lugging on that fine, warm, Red Horse beer. The bands roared their souls out even if they played for free! And even if I was a part of the organizing body of this event, I still paid good money for my own good time to help those good people!

Whether or not you are one of those people who I have ‘mentioned’ in this entry, I would like to inform you that 1FiSH Entertainment is coming up with another event for the same cause that will happen early November. Watch out for it and this time, be there so you can stop gossiping your calloused asses about the hammered people I have mentioned (that would be I) and see the disaster for yourself.

Roy Alberto is a co-organizer of 1 Fish Entertainment and an active participant in the SaveGuimaras group. Check his blog here.

1) Nicasio I. Alcantara – Chairman of Petron. Petron hires Holcim to take out debris from Guimaras (Oliver Mendoza of the Guardian wrote an Australian company offered to do the services for free.)

2) Tomas I. Alcantara – listed as a Board Director of Holcim. See this document. (page 3 – lists him as a director
page 13 – provides a professional background which includes the ff: that he is the President and Chairman of Alsons Consolidated Resources and former Undersecretary of DTI)

3) Alcantara and Sons were also listed as a stockholder (no. 57) in this document

4) The Holcim Quarterly Report (June 2006) (p10) reported the company generated 3.7 billion in revenues this year but its 5.8% lower than in 2005 due to low market demand. The company’s total assets as of June 2006 was P26.4 billion, a P740 million decrease from Dec 31, 2005.

Oliver Mendoza? has listed the ff: article in the Guardian on his blog where Virginia Ruivivar, Petron Public Affairs Manager Officer denied any connection between Nicasio I. Alcantara and Alisons Cement Incorporated). For the article “Petron pays P/7 click here“.

Wanted: a Film Documentary that will expose the politics behind the Guimaras oil spill. Read this report (background on the Erika sinking) from the BBC.To watch the video, click here (report by Tom Mangold). Some excerpts:

“Italian businessman Giuseppe Savarese, having eventually been identified as the owner of the Erika, is now facing criminal charges in France and has a 1 million bail on this head.”

“RINA accepts some of the responsibility but also points the finger at the Malta authorities, where the ship was flagged.”

“Lino Vassallo of the Malta Maritime Authority passes the buck straight back. He insists that whatever went wrong wasn’t their fault.”

‘I was thinking, what kind of system is this?’ the Captain told Correspondent at his home port of Bombay, ‘What about the other players? For no fault of my own I am being put in prison! I am only operating the ship and I am the one was is jailed. I am not the one who owned the ship. What about the rest?’

To read the transcript of the background video, click here.

In the beginning, Total Fina, the French oil company that owned the oil transported by Erika, denied any responsibility for the oil spill. This instigated French public outrage, while three major European countries started a boycott against the company. Suffering from public pressure and the threat of legal action in the French courts, Total Fina eventually admitted responsibility for the environmental disaster.

Many hoped that another Erika would never happen, but on Aug. 11, 2005, a tiny island in the Philippines named Guimaras suffered the same fate. In the role of Total Fina was a Philippine oil company named Petron. Petron is jointly owned by the Philippine government (30 percent), Saudi Aramco (40 percent), and other private stakeholders. More than 1 million liters of bunker fuel leaked from MT Solar I, the tanker hauling the Petron oil, damaging almost 300 km. (180 miles) of coastline and hectares of mangroves, while displacing 26,000 people, most of whom were fishermen who depended upon the sea for livelihood.

To put food on the table, the same fishermen helped in the clean up for P300 (US$6) a day, even while knowing that there were high toxic levels of hydrogen sulfide present, which can cause irreversible brain damage and even death. (Although there is a big difference betweek the exact oil spill leakage, Erika (14,000 tons) and Guimaras (600 tons), the effect on coastal damage is staggering. The Erika oil spill affected almost 400 km of coastline while Guimaras, an astounding 300 kms.)
International media like CNN and BBC only covered the Guimaras incident for several days. The only time it was picked up again by the international media was as a human interest story, when Filipinos started shaving their hair in the hope of using it to absorb the oil. The hair segment veered far away from the real issue and eclipsed the seriousness of the problem. It just confirmed that in the eyes of the international community, Guimaras is an unimportant island, which is exacerbated by the fact that it is in the Philippines, a developing nation

The Erika oil spill occurred in France, a wealthy European nation with world economic influence. France is also a country where freedom of expression is highly observed. It is hardly surprising that the French public could force the French government to take action and Total Fina to pay for the cleanup costs and the pumping of oil from Erika.

But in the Philippines, freedom of expression can kill. The Philippines is one of the countries with the highest number of journalists murdered (either for doing their job or because of illegal activities). With 75 percent of the population under the poverty line and majority already frustrated with “people power” revolutions that failed to bring about social change, democracy in the Philippines hardly exists.

This week, Joe Nichols, the executive of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPC ), asked the regional media to stop highlighting negative stories and focus on more positive ones. But shutting up would mean continued injustice.

In the IOPC website, Guimaras was not even listed as a recent major oil spill incident. (correction, it is listed in the ongoing oil spill section but not as a major oil spill) The nonchalance of the IOPC for Guimaras is a complete opposite reaction to the Erika oil spill, where they were forced to increase the oil claims fund to almost 50 percent, giving in to pressure from E.U. courts.
To date, Petron is denying responsibility for the oil spill. They are mirroring what Total Fina did, except this time, Guimaras does not have the international media nor the international community to back it up.

This article also appeared at OhMyNews.com, a citizen news portal.

It is also? online hub for CBCRM practitioners who are currently helping in Guimaras and provide information towards long-term rehabilitation of the affected communities. Check the site at: www.cbcrmlearning.org/petron_oilspill/index.htm To view the joint statement of CBNRM and the NGOs for Fishermen reform, please click here. (We are also publishing it below)

THE JOINT STATEMENT:

Hold Petron and Sunshine Maritime accountable for the oil spill.
Hold government equally accountable for failure to perform its
regulatory role.

September 22, 2006
Quezon City

The Petron/Solar 1 oil spill along the coastlines of Guimaras is the result of the failure of corporations to concretize their social responsibility and government’s failure to fulfill its regulatory role. The oil spill should be properly called the “Petron/Solar 1 Oil Spill” to establish proper accountability. It has been 41 days since the oil spill. The Northeast monsoon (Amihan) will soon commence and the oil spill may spread further to the south of Guimaras and west of Guimaras Strait affecting other coastal areas.

We demand that Petron/Sunshine Maritime remove the remaining oil in the sunken vessel as soon as possible. Current efforts at cleaning up the oil spill on the beach provide merely cosmetic relief since the oil spill which hit Guimaras is only 1/10th of the Solar’s total cargo; the bulk of the 2 million liters of bunker fuel is still leaking from the sunken tanker at a reported 120 liters a day. Unless the remaining oil in the tanker is removed or siphoned, clean-up activities will only expose villagers to health hazards. Petron and Sunshine Maritime must exhaust all resources at their disposal to expedite the process.
Moreover, the International Pollution Control Fund is already conducting community workshops aimed at facilitating the claims-making process for the victims of the incident. Such information awareness is definitely needed by the communities but until such time that a comprehensive assessment of damages is concluded, such efforts are premature.
The coastal communities need to be sufficiently informed of the proper value of the damage, the clean-up and rehabilitation and of their rights.
The government and its agencies responsible for regulating the shipping industry should likewise be accountable for the Petron/Solar oil spill. By giving the MV Solar 1 clearance to sail, despite clear violations of conduct, government agencies tasked with regulating shipping activities have clearly failed to fulfill their responsibility.
We thus call on Petron and Sunshine Maritime to:
Expedite the removal of the MV Solar I from the sea or the siphoning of the remaining cargo;
Cease the workshops on indemnification and recognize the role of local government units and civil society to lead such processes;
Indemnify the people of Guimaras for the long-term ecological damage, the loss of livelihood opportunities and the immediate and long-term effects on public health; and
Uphold corporate social responsibility by adhering to the highest safety standards and ethical practice in their operations.
We likewise call on the government to:
Ensure that transparent and impartial mechanisms are in place to fairly valuate damages and formulate and implement of long-term rehabilitation plans by actively involving local governments of Guimaras, affected communities and civil society;
Expedite and ensure transparent and impartial investigations as to the liability of all parties concerned including the Marina and the Philippine Coast Guard; and
Review laws and policies on the handling and transport of hazardous cargo, formulate and enact appropriate measures to mitigate such disasters in the future.
Community-Based Coastal Resource Management Resource Center
13 A Maaralin Street
Central District, Quezon City
Telefax: 9203368
Contact Person:
Leonard G. Reyes
Email: hok_bu@yahoo.com
Mobile: 09063129789
NGOs for Fisheries Reform
59 C Salvador Street
Varsity Hills, Loyola Heights
Quezon City9270122
Contact Person:
Stanley Yu
9270122

Randee Cabaces is a member of CBNRN (Community Based Natural Resources Management Learning Center)

Civil society groups and other concerned sectors here in the Philippines have been making some noise since August about the failure of oil companies and government to ensure safe transport of crude oil within the country’s archipelagic waters. Such irresponsible disregard for safety measures and regulations has resulted in yet another disastrous oil spill off the coast of Guimaras Island. Motor tanker Solar 1, carrying over 2 million liters of bunker fuel, sank in nearby waters due to big waves and has been spilling its deadly cargo at the rate of 200 liters an hour.

28 of Guimaras Island’s 40 villages have been affected by the oil spill. Many of the island’s small fishers who used to be independent producers now depend on wages from irregular jobs and the oil companies’ clean up operations for their livelihood. The oil spill has destroyed around 454 hectares of mangroves and 58 hectares of seaweed plantation. Marine habitats and coral reefs around neighboring Taklong Island, site of a national marine reserve, were severely affected.

The destruction of the environment and the disruption of people’s livelihoods continue as Solar 1′s cargo has yet to be retrieved or secured. But beyond recent calls for expediting the removal of the damaged tanker from Guimaras’ waters, indemnifying the affected communities, rehabilitating damaged coastal ecosystems and livelihoods, and adopting numerous policy amendements, one may ask about a more realistic proposal in light of this recent catastrophe.

As one local marine scientist has noted, there have been 16 reported oil spills in the Philippines since 1965. The actual figure could be higher as government’s capacity to monitor such disasters remain weak and with many incidents ending up unreported. Given this and at the rate public debate on the issue has been shaping up in the past months, it may be safe to assume that the Petron/Solar 1 mess will be finally tallied as just another social-ecological disaster in recent Philippine history, a heavy but necessary price to pay for the country’s fossil fuel-dependent drive towards economic development and industrial progress.

Unless local civil society groups and environmental campaign organizations also begin to look at the hard facts and beyond the usual demands for corporate accountability and government regulation following such oil spills. Unless they take this incident as another opportunity to push into public consciousness the destructiveness and growing unsustainability of society’s continued dependence on fossil fuels. Unless they prod advocacy and policy work to take decisive steps towards calling for innovation and increased public investment in clean alternative energy sources.

Learning from the Erika Oil Spill. Above: An ad condemning, Total Fina, the French oil company, as responsible for the Erika Oil Spill (2001). The French public branded them as FATAL. In the end the French oil company admitted responsibility and had to pay for both the clean up costs and the siphoning of the Erika tanker. They also set up an emergency fund to help the communities affected and to promote back tourism in Brittany, France. (We will publish this in another entry.)

Excerpt from OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Jan 2001) provided by field.org.uk

CONSEQUENCES FOR RESPECTIVE PARTIES

THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT HAS CHARGED – Giuseppe Savarese (the beneficial owner of the Erika), Panship (the vessel’s ship-manager) and RINA (the vessel’s classification society) with putting lives in danger and causing marine pollution. The Master of the ship was similarly charged but later released.

RINA? SUED eleven organisations in connection with their roles in the sinking of the Erika. These include: the registered owner (Tevere Shipping), Panship, the charterer (TotalFina), the ship-owner’s P&I club (Steamship Mutual), the IOPC and the French government. This action was served in Augusta, Sicily on 12 April 2000.

TEVERE SHIPPING has been sued for a reported US$4 million by TotalFina for the loss of its heavy fuel oil cargo, this action being filed in Dunkirk. The liabilities of the ship-owner in terms of oil pollution damage – despite the evident failings of the vessel are confined to the limits specified in the Civil Liability Convention. This would amount to around US$12.3 million. Moreover, even this is prospectively recoverable from the owner’s P&I club, Steamship Mutual.

BENEFICIAL OWNER GIUSSEPE SEVARESE? ? reportedly owes the vessel’s crew for three months unpaid wages, and is likely to be sued for the recovery of these monies.The vessel operator and ship-manager Amarship and Panship respectively have no liability for oil pollution damage under IMO conventions. Nonetheless, the French government is pursuing legal action against the latter, as well as against the beneficial owner, Giuseppe Savarese.

PANSHIP also stands to lose its ISM certification, based on recommendations by RINA to the Maltese and Italian authorities.

SELMONT INTERNATIONAL, as time-charterer of the Erika, has similarly not incurred any known liabilities arising from the loss of the vessel. As it is not the registered owner of the ship, it is exempt from any claims arising from oil pollution damage.

OTHERS

As the spot charterer of the Erika, TotalFina has incurred substantial adverse publicity that it hassought to counteract. It has ? therefore undertaken not to pursue any claims for compensation against the ship-owner or the IOPC Fund unless all other claims are settled in full. It has alsopledged to pay up to a reported FFr40 million towards the cost of cleaning up beaches and FFr30 million towards publicity to boost tourism in the region affected by the spill. However, in practice, most of these outlays will ultimately be recovered from TotalFina’s P&I club.

The commercial impact on the intended recipient of the cargo, ENEL, depends on the degree to which the company had sufficient operating stocks on which it could call to avoid any disruption
to its plant’s operations.

RINA, in its capacity as the society that classified the Erika, has also attracted much adverse publicity. The society will inevitably be affected by any new measures that the European Commission imposes to ensure more effective enforcement of class requirements by societies acting within EU states.

The identity of the company that had provided the hull and machinery insurance on the Erika has not been confirmed. However, it is reported that the ship had an insured value of US$6
million. Whether this will be paid out would hinge on the outcome of the various legal proceedings arising from the loss of the vessel.

In its capacity as Port State, the French government has agreed, like TotalFina, not to file any claims for oil pollution damage compensation unless all other claims are fully settled from the
monies available under IOPC Fund provisions.45 This gesture by the French government and TotalFina is reportedly likely to cost these parties a collective US$220 million.

This compares with the FFr1,195 million that will be paid from the IOPC Fund to meet compensation claims for oil pollution damage arising from the Erika.

The IOPC Fund authorities met on 23 October 2000 to consider compensation claims and will meet again in April 2001 to determine the extent of prospective settlements. Some interim payments have already been made.

oecdsubstvessels.pdf

Excerpt from the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Jan 2000) (provided by Cristophe Scwharte of field.org.uk)

EXAMPLE: ERIKA CASE HISTORY (Background)

On DECEMBER 12, 1999, the 1975-built, 37,283 dwt, Maltese-flag dirty product tanker Erika broke up in heavy seas in the Bay of Biscay, around 40 nautical miles off the coast of Brittany. In doing so, it precipitated one of the worst cases of maritime pollution in European waters seen in recent years.

Although the volume of oil spilt was modest by the standards of previous high-profile tanker accidents (around 15,000 tonnes), the highly persistent nature of its heavy fuel oil cargo led to extremely severe pollution, covering around 400 km of coastline. Six months later, recovery of the remaining cargo still aboard the ship and treatment of the resulting pollution were both still in progress.

After the oil spill, TotalFina – the charterer of the Erika was subject to particularly severe criticism. This was because, apart from being a single-hulled tanker, the ship was a flag-of convenience vessel that had changed ownership several times, was controlled by a Malta-based brass plate ship-owner and had undergone several changes of classification society.

In addition, it has emerged that the ship had been built to a very light scantling design and had a lightweight that was some 1,000 tonnes below that of similar tonnage. The advanced age of the Erika was a particular source of ensuing criticism both from the French and EC authorities.

The fate of the Erika demonstrated the shortcomings of the shipping industry’s existing regulator mechanisms in that, although old by the standards of the tanker fleet, the ship was still in class, had ISM certification and had only undergone annual survey by RINA shortly before its final voyage.

(Full document to be provided after the Erika series)