The Philippines is no stranger to oil spills, being an archipelago that heavily relies on sea transportation to move goods and people from one island to another.
Oil spill accidents can generally affect plants, animals, and habitats found in bodies of water. The Philippines, where “the center of the center of marine shorefish biodiversity” is located, is especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of oil spills.
To prevent oil spills from damaging the country’s precious ecosystem and harming Filipinos, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has a system in place known as the National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCOP), which lays out how the government will respond to different kinds and magnitudes of oil spills.
Here’s useful information on the country’s oil spill contingency plan.
Tiered response
The NOSCOP adopted a tiered response to allow “efficient escalation of response efforts” by utilizing resources as required. The three tiers are as follows:
- Tier I: Response for small oil spills that affect a local area. According to NOSCOP, resources for this tier are available locally without the need for external support and can be dealt with by the individual operator or spiller. Examples of these are spills associated with transfer of fuel or bunker at a terminal, and smaller harbor spills.
- Tier II: Made for oil spills that are most likely to extend outside the limit of the Tier I response, requiring additional resources “from a variety of potential sources from other stakeholders.” Oil spills in need of Tier II response involve “a large spill that may occur in the vicinity where the spiller has limited control of events or smaller spill at distant locations.” Examples of spills requiring a response of this tier include shipping incidents in ports/harbors or in coastal waters, pipeline or tank failures, near-shore explorations, and production operations.
- Tier III: Also known as “national level,” a Tier III response is raised for oil spills that can cause major impact such as large tanker accidents and offshore blowouts. According to the NOSCOP, Tier III arrangements call for the “entire oil spill response resources in a nation, including that of the Oil Spill Response Organizations, and may also call for international assistance.”
Initial tier response depends on the identified volume of oil spilled:
- Tier I – 1 liter to 10,000 liters
- Tier II – 10,001 liters to 1,000,000 liters
- Tier III – More than 1,000,000 liters
According to the NOSCOP, an escalation of tier response depends on the capability of the spiller to mitigate and respond to the oil spill. Response escalation also depends on whether an oil spill is located near communities, factories, power plants, ports, fishing and aquaculture businesses, tourism areas, and marine protected areas.
Major oil spills in Philippines
The PCG had raised a Tier III response in several major oil spills that occurred in recent years.
The most recent example was the oil spill response for the MT Princess Empress incident which the PCG raised to Tier III on March 25, 2023. MT Princess Empress is an oil tanker that capsized near Tablas Island, Romblon on February 28, 2023.
Oil removal operations first began on May 29, or three months after the ship sank. Two-thirds of the 900,000 liters of the black oil cargo had already spilled before the bagging operation started. Oil siphoning operation for the oil spill was completed on June 17, 2023, the PCG said.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported that as of February 6, 2024, the oil spill from MT Princess Empress affected 20 cities and municipalities across four provinces, 27,850 fisherfolk, 2,252 hectares of corals, 1,040 hectares of seagrass, and 1,604 hectares of mangroves.
The same report also estimated that the oil spill caused P4.92 billion worth of damage to agriculture and P2.64-million damage to livestock, poultry, and fisheries.
Another noteworthy Tier III oil spill response involved MT Solar I, which sank in the vicinity of Guimaras on August 11, 2006. According to the NOSCOP, the accident caused two million liters of oil to spill through the straits of Guimaras and Iloilo. The NOSCOP also listed the following that merited a Tier III oil spill response:
- MT Vector / MV Doña Paz oil spill — Motor tanker MT Vector, carrying 1.39 million liters of petroleum products, and passenger ship MV Doña Paz, carrying 4,000 passengers, collided on December 20, 1987 within the vicinity of Dumali Point between Marinduque and Oriental Mindoro. The collision ignited the spilled oil, killing everyone except 24 survivors.
- National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) Barge 103 damage — Strong winds and currents caused by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) hit the municipality of Estancia, Iloilo on November 9, 2013, resulting in damage to Barge 103, which caused the spillage of 386,000 liters of oil.
Strategies differ by area
The NOSCOP also applies different response strategies depending on the type of area.
For offshore areas, which are situated at sea some distance from the shore, response involves mechanical cleanup, chemical dispersants, and in-situ burning. (READ: FAST FACTS: Oil spill cleanups)
In coastal zones, which the NOSCOP defines as a “transition zone” between open water and shoreline, smaller boats are commonly used for oil response instead of large vessels. In the Philippines, the waters inside territorial waters are considered coastal zone areas, the NOSCOP said.
In the event that an oil spill reaches the shoreline, the NOSCOP adopts a strategy focused on cleaning the affected shoreline, which includes the deployment of booms to contain the oil, skimmers to collect floating oil, sorbents to collect oil through absorption, tanks for storing recovered oil, and chemical dispersants.
Equipment
The NOSCOP requires each PCG district and station to have the following equipment to perform at least a Tier I response on oil spill incidents:
- Oil spill equipment shed or warehouse
- 1,000 meters of solid booms
- 1,000 meters of fence booms
- 1,000 meters of sorbent booms
- 200 bales of sorbent pads
- 200 bales of oil snare
- 2 sets of oil skimmers
- 10 drums of oil spill dispersants
- 10 drums of degreasers
- Prime mover or trucks
- Boom truck
- Forklift
- Satellite phone
- Unmanned aerial vehicle or drone for oil spill detection and surveillance
- Unmanned underwater vehicle or drone for oil spill detection and surveillance
The PCG may also “direct or order” any facilities or vessels with International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) equipment and supplies to augment oil spill response efforts. MARPOL is the main international convention covering prevention of pollution of the marine environment by ships from operational or accidental causes.
Oil companies Caltex, Petron, Shell, Isla, Total, and PTT also have agreements with the PCG to provide mutual aid when an oil spill occurs.
Operational guidelines
When an oil spill occurs, the PCG, through the NOSCOP, follows these four-step guidelines:
- Initial/Alert – the first step in the NOSCOP’s guideline, covering the time from when a spill is reported, preliminary assessment of oil spill is done, tier response is determined, key personnel are notified, and decision to commence oil spill response efforts are made.
This phase also involves creating the incident management team, identifying resources immediately at risk, preparing an initial statement, and starting an investigation and documentation teams.
- Mobilization – covers the time from when a decision for a response is made to preparation. This phase involves assembling a full-response action plan, identifying immediate response priorities, developing an incident action plan, mobilizing the response team, establishing the incident command center, establishing the advanced command post and communication, and conducting an on-site/area assessment.
- Response – covers the time when the oil spill response is executed, including the preparation of daily action plan, updates, incident logs, and management reports. Additional equipment, supplies, and manpower are also part of this phase. The NOSCOP also said experts and advisers would be involved in this phase, as well as health and safety officers, to ensure that all people involved are equipped with personal protective equipment.
This phase also includes preparing an escalation or downgrading of the tier response, preparing operations accounting and financial reports, preparing information for the public and press, and briefing of local and national government officials..
- Demobilization or termination – the final phase of an oil spill response. It includes the demobilization of wildlife response, monitoring of unrecovered oil, demobilizing, cleaning, maintaining, and/or replacing equipment, debriefing, and preparing the formal final oil spill report.
The NOSCOP has similar operational guidelines for Tier I and II responses, while Tier III response involves elevating the incident to the Philippine Coast Guard commandant.
Foreign institutional help
In oil spill accidents where local resources are inadequate, the Philippines also receives help from the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPC).
The Philippines became a member of the IOPC after it ratified two international conventions: (1) the International Convention on Civil Liability Convention for Oil Pollution Damage or CLC, and (2) the 1992 International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation for Oil Pollution Damage or Fund 92, which the country both signed on July 7, 1997.
“The International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds (IOPC Funds) provide financial compensation for oil pollution damage that occurs in Member States, resulting from spills of persistent oil from tankers,” the IOPC website says.
The IOPC said on their website that the principal role of the IOPC Funds is to “pay compensation to those who have suffered oil pollution damage in a Member State” who cannot fully obtain it from the ship owner.
On April 25, 2023, IOPC director Gaute Sivertsen visited the oil spill caused by MT Princess Empress where he said that the process for claiming insurance for the oil spill is already underway, and the coverage includes government expenses for the cleanup.
The IOPC website says that the amount of claims that could be made to Shipowners’ P&I Club, the insurer of MT Princess Empress’ shipowner, “may exceed” the P20-million Special Drawing Rights (SDR) limit under the 1992 CLC making it “possible” for the 1992 Fund to be used for compensation.
The same website also says that claimants must “be able to show the amount of their loss or damage by producing accounting records or other appropriate evidence” to be entitled to financial compensation. – Rappler.com
SOURCES:
- National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCOP)
- The center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity: The Philippine Islands
- Oil Spill Organizations and Resource Providers
- United States Environmental Protection Agency – Skimmers
- International Maritime Organization – MARPOL
- Princess Empress – Information for claimants