BY PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
MANILA – The spokesperson of the Estancia, Iloilo oil spill cleanup contractor clarified he was not referring to Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr. when he insinuated that somebody wanted to solicit funds from them.
Defensor, the other day, denied demanding money from Kuan Yu Global Technologies, Inc. and threatened to send Valentino Mempin to prison for the latter’s slanderous comment.
Mempin told Panay News yesterday he was not referring to the governor.
“(I was referring to) someone else,” he said, but did not give any name.
Mempin also said he “admires” Defensor for being straightforward but refuted the governor’s claim that Kuan Yu was merely making excuses for failing to complete its oil spill cleanup operation.
Kuan Yu had been “fast,” insisted Mempin.
The contractor could not afford to delay the cleanup because doing so would mean more “administrative expenses” on their part.
The Iloilo provincial government’s Task Force Power Barge 103, the body mandated to oversee the progress of various oil spill responses in the northern part of the province, had said Kuan Yu’s job was far from over.
“Let me remind you that your job is not yet complete,” Commodore Athelo Ybañez of the Philippine Coast Guard – Region 6 pointed out in reaction to the presentation of Mempin on Monday during their meeting.
Mempin claimed that Kuan Yu had complied with the task force’s cleanup guidelines – cleaned and recovered 80 percent (of the area affected) and left 20 percent for natural recovery.
But Ybañez told Mempin, “You only finished 90 percent of the 80 percent. You still have to clean one segment in Brgy. Botongon (ground zero) in Estancia and another one in Brgy. Alinsulong in Batad.”
Ybañez said the two remaining areas will only be declared “clean” by the task force once Kuan Yu removed the oiled debris and mobile oil visible in the sites to date.
Mempin, in response, vowed to attend to it immediately.
He previously told Panay News Kuan Yu was ready to face whatever charges the provincial government would file in connection with their cleanup operations.
Since November 23, 2013 when Kuan Yu started the cleanup, a total of 1,116,532 liters of bunker fuel have been removed from 14 affected villages in Estancia, Batad and Ajuy towns.
The contractor also reported that they managed to remove 16,907 sacks of oiled debris.
The damaged Power Barge 103 contained approximately 1,386,100 liters of bunker fuel before the spillage on November 8, 2013 when super typhoon “Yolanda” struck.
Meanwhile, Gov. Defensor announced he was considering the proposal of University of the Philippines Visayas chancellor, Dr. Rommel Espinosa to hold a rapid oil spill assessment and monitoring.
The long-term program will find out the extent of the oil spill’s damage and the disaster’s effect to everybody, including the environment. (With a report from Jezza A. Nepomoceno, Capitol News/PN)
