On February 28, 2023, an oil tanker, MT Princess Empress, sank causing a widespread oil spill in the Tablas Strait, Mindoro Oriental, and has affected the provinces of Antique, Batangas, Oriental Mindoro, and Palawan. The oil tanker was carrying 900,000 liters of industrial fuel oil before it sank.
The strait of Tablas and its adjacent waterbodies are one of the most biodiverse in the country.
A five-kilometer-long and 500-meter-wide oil spill was soon discovered near the shipwreck. The coast guard said it was from the diesel fuel used to power the tanker, not the industrial fuel oil it was carrying. Bu on March 1, the oil spill expanded to around six by four kilometers and oil spill was collected in Caluya, Antique
Today it has been more than a month since the MT Princess Empress capsized.
The wreck was located only on March 21, but the vessel remains underwater.
Meantime the slick has since stretched across 250 kilometers of sea, polluting the shores of at least three provinces, costing the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen and threatening over 20 marine protected areas.
The effort to stop the spilling has since failed and more needs to be done to remove oil from affected areas.
According to the country's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, more than 170,000 people in shoreline communities have been impacted by the spill, and nearly 17,000 fishermen have lost their incomes after authorities imposed a temporary fishing ban. 119 barangays in Oriental Mindoro, eight in Palawan, and four in Antique were affected by the oil spill.
The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands, has a poor maritime safety record, and oil spills and ferry accidents are not uncommon.
The environmental disaster has prompted a Senate probe centered on accusations that the MT Princess Empress operated without a permit. According to the local authorities, the sunken tanker was a newly constructed vessel built "from scratch"
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he hopes the clean up can be completed within four months. But that seems unlikely, as authorities were not equipped to handle the disaster to begin with and response efforts have dragged on.
For oil that has reached the shores, the Government urged local people to deploy "indigenous" cleanup solutions, such as do-it-yourself booms made of coconut husks, in coordination with the Philippine Coast Guard.
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