Petron belies reports on company's reluctance to give livelihood
Petron Corporation yesterday denied reports they have issued a statement during the joint committee hearing of the Senate and Congress Monday in Manila that they will not give livelihood to the residents of Guimaras towns affected by the oil spill.
Carlos Tan, Petron's Health and Safety Manager, one of the officials of the oil firm who appeared in the legislative inquiry said they did not issue such statement.
Tan also denied reports that they were scolded by the members of the committee for issuing such statement and their inaction on the problem. He said the only setback they received from the inquiry team is that they have done their part without making it public.
Tan said the company's concept at the height of the oil spill issue is to "work and do our share without the media mileage." We learned that we have to inform the entire public and not just the affected residents of what we have done to contain the oil spill and help the affected residents, he said.
He explained that under the Ligtas Guimaras which Petron have designed to alleviate the effects of the oil spill among the residents, its source of income as well as damage to the environment has a livelihood component.
The livelihood component of the program is different from the cash-for-work program. The cash-for-work program deals with the hiring of residents to do the clean-up work with a daily take of P300. Before, each worker only received P200 from Petron.
In the cash-for-work program, Petron has already hired the services of 7,855 persons. The workforce has collected 516 metric tons of oil and debris. In the briefing kit of Petron, they said they have already cleaned 67.28 kilometers of shoreline but during the press conference they said they have already cleaned 80 kilometers of shoreline.
The livelihood component of Petron's Ligtas Guimaras is in coordination with the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the local government unit. The study is still on-going on what is the viable livelihood for the affected residents.
Petron could not just immediately said they will go into a swine raising or chicken raising when they don't know how to take care of the pigs or chicken and whether there is a sure market, said Tan.