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A public hearing will be held on Monday in Borbon town, Cebu to sound off residents about a plan for an Australian mining firm to conduct a seismic survey in the Camotes Sea.
Borbon Mayor Butch Sepulveda will attend the forum called by the Department of Energy.
He was reportedly not aware of the sea exploration, which several Borbon fisherfolk fear will disrupt their sea catch and destroy fish pens even as the DOE assured that the survey, which uses sound waves to test for possible gas and oil reserves, would not harm marine life.
At a forum yesterday, an economics professor said the government should compute the loss of livelihood of fisherfolk and damage wrought on the seas when evaluating the cost of development projects like oil drilling.
Lourdes Montenegro, University of San Carlos (USC) environmental economics professor, said while losses to fisherfolk may be minimal compared to the revenues obtained from oil drilling, this should not be overlooked.
?The impact on these fishermen, that they are getting less fish..that loss of income might be small in absolute terms to the rest of society. But to them, that is very big. That could spell the difference between survival and non-survival,? she said.
Montenegro commented on the complaint of Cebu-based fishermen who oppose the planned seismic survey of NorAsian Energy Limited, off the coast of Borbon town, Cebu.
Fisherfolk groups and ecologyb lawyers said the project grossly violated the country's laws and the people's rights to ?life, health and a healthy environment.?
In a letter to Cebu governors, they said local government units ?are precluded from approving the sonar survey and the oil exploration activity unless all the requirements are complied with, including the issue on acceptability on the part of the stakeholders.
The DOE approved a service contract for NorAsian Energy Ltd. to conduct a seismic survey, set for the first two weeks of March. However, the actual survey has not yet started off Borbon.
A Chinese vessel, the BGP Challenger, will conduct the tests traveling about eight kilometers per hour or 7.5 minutes per kilometer.
The vessel will transmit sound waves to the seafloor from an air source placed at five to eight meters below the sea surface.
The sound waves are later analyzed by computer. The vessel will cover a total of 100 line kilometers in Borbon waters or at a distance of at least 2 kilometers from the town?s shoreline.
Fishers and environmentalists opposed a similar exploration done by the Japan Petroleum Exploration (Japex) along the Tañon Strait in 2007.
They said the sounds generated by the oil drilling and exploration activities have driven away dolphins and whales from the area.
They filed a petition for injunction and mandamus against Japex with the Supreme Court in behalf of the marine mammals living in Tañon Strait.
Instead of drilling for oil, Montenegro said government should pursue renewable energy projects that tap natural sources such as solar, wind and hydroelectric power.
?Coal power is cheap, but we really do not know its social costs in terms of effects of the climate, the number of upper respiratory illness cases in the community,? she said.
?It's not that renewable energy is not economically feasible. They just have to re-design a power distribution system and this would take time and resources,? she added.
