Marcos: No need for new task force on Oriental Mindoro oil spill | ABS-CBN

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Marcos: No need for new task force on Oriental Mindoro oil spill

Marcos: No need for new task force on Oriental Mindoro oil spill

Katrina Domingo,

ABS-CBN News

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The Philippine Coast Guard deploys an oil spill boom and skimmer with manual scooping around the suspected area of the sunken MT Princess Empress in Oriental Mindoro on March 14, 2023. Photo courtesy of Malayan Towage and Salvage Corporation/Philippine Coast Guard
The Philippine Coast Guard deploys an oil spill boom and skimmer with manual scooping around the suspected area of the sunken MT Princess Empress in Oriental Mindoro on March 14, 2023. Photo courtesy of Malayan Towage and Salvage Corporation/Philippine Coast Guard

MANILA — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday said there was no need to create a new task force to oversee the ongoing oil spill cleanup in Oriental Mindoro.

“The task force for the oil spill is the coast guard,” Marcos Jr. told reporters in a chance interview.

“There is no need to reorganize something for everything… The idea is to have the assets in place… so they are ready already as it is,” he said.

The coast guard has been coordinating with “foreign aid that’s coming from Japan and the US” to speed up the containment of the spillage that has spread to other coastal areas, the President said.

Other agencies are also involved in the operations with the environment department assessing the damage and identifying areas that need to be cleaned and monitored, while the social welfare department is in charge of providing aid and alternative income to fisherfolk who were ordered to stay ashore due to the disaster, he said.

The MT Princess Empress was carrying some 800,000 liters of industrial fuel when it went down in rough seas in Oriental Mindoro on February 28.

The oil spill from the sunken tanker has reached parts of Palawan, while Oriental Mindoro has been placed under a state of calamity.

Marcos Jr. earlier said that the government targets to finish the clean up in less than 4 months.

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