Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Tuesday said the Philippine government is already “verifying the correctness” of a report on Chinese vessels allegedly dumping human waste and sewage in the West Philippine Sea.
If found true, Lorenzana said in a statement that they will confirm if the waste from “such irresponsible acts” have already reached Philippine waters.
He said such dumping “will undoubtedly cause grave damage to the marine ecology in the region.”
“Despite overlapping claims and interests by states in the South China Sea, all nations must be responsible stewards of the environment,” Lorenzana added.
Messaged separately by GMA News Online, Lorenzana earlier said they cannot confirm the veracity of the report. “No comment. We have no way of confirming if it is true or not.â€
In his statement, Lorenzana also said that the photo accompanying the Simularity report was taken in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 2014 and not in the South China Sea.
Lorenzana had already pointed out the photo in an earlier message to reporters. “The reported dumping of waste in the WPS is not true. That photo is from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia,†he said.
Lorenzana said that was his stand “as of this moment absent any confirmation of the Simularity report.â€
“Our people are verifying. We have not received any report of waste dumping in the past,†he added.
In the news report, Liz Derr, founder and CEO of Simularity, bared that Chinese vessels have been dumping raw sewage every day for several years on reefs in the resource-rich area, creating harmful Chlorophyll-a blooms in the waters.
Simularity specializes in geospatial analysis and provides satellite data imagery.
Derr’s findings indicated that the damage brought by the dumping of human wastes would “take decades to recover even with active mitigation.” -MDM, GMA News
