The Negros Occidental Provincial Peace and Order Council and the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council yesterday passed a resolution stressing that their demand for the removal of MT Solar 1 and its bunker fuel cargo from the site where it sank off the coast of Guimaras is unconditional.

Gov. Joseph Marañon and mayors of Negros Occidental at the PPOC and PDCC meeting said that, unless the tanker, which sank with 2.1 million liters of bunker fuel on board on Aug. 11, is removed, the leak of the sizable amount of its cargo still on board will continue to be a threat, like a Sword of Damocles hanging over Western Visayas.

Marañon said a copy of the resolution will be sent to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the National Disaster Coordinating Council.

Bacolod Coast Guard Commander Edgar Ybañez informed the Negros officials that a robotic arm of the Remote-Operated Vehicle of the Japanese survey ship Shinsei Maru tightened valves of tanks on board the MT Solar 1 to lessen their leak, which he said was now very minimal. He said no decision had been made yet on whether the MT Solar 1 would be raised from the bottom of Guimaras' waters or the bunker fuel on board will be sucked out as recommendations from the Japansese surveyors are still being awaited.

It could take about six months to salvage MT Solar 1 and only three months to suck its cargo out, Ybañez said.

He could not tell the Negros officials when any action will be taken on actual removal of the tanker. Valladolid Mayor Ricardo Presbitero, who outlined his town's response to the oil spill scare, said they have set three levels of alert with corresponding response measures.

Alert level 1 is when the oil spill is spotted entering their territorial waters, alert level two is when it seeps through the spill booms they send out to sea to stop its approach and bamboo barriers have to be set up to stop its hitting the shore, and alert level 3 is when it hits land and a massive community clean up response is needed, he said.

EB Magalona Mayor Alfonso Gamboa asked that the alert levels defined by Presbitero be adopted by all coastal towns and cities of Negros Occidental to ensure uniform terminology.

Marañon lauded the local officials of Negros Occidental for all the innovative schemes they have adopted to fight off the oil spill's entering the province's waters.*CPG

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