1 Ecodemocracy in Post-Disaster Communities: the Case of Social

Ecodemocracy in Post-Disaster Communities: The Case of Social Movements during the post-MT Solar 1 Oil Spill in Guimaras Island Province Marie Athena C. Ybañez Submitted to: Dr. Josefina Tayag Department of Social Sciences College of Arts and Sciences University of the Philippines Manila In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF ARTS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE May 2017 1 I. Abstract Described as the worst environmental accident in the country, the 2006 M/T Solar 1 Oil Spill, was one that pierced the socioeconomic status of the island province of Guimaras. Not only that, the damage has reached the provinces of Iloilo, Guimaras, and Negros Occidental, all located in the Western Visayas Region of the country. This seminar paper, through qualitative methods, sheds light on the ecodemocratic process that took part during the rehabilitation stages of the oil spill, giving emphasis on the alternative, yet, crucial role of social movement organizations in airing the demands of the worst hit barangays to the local and national government officials. 2 II. Acknowledgments In the fulfillment of this study, my heart pours out its gratitude to the following people: To Dr. Josefina Tayag, my research advisers, thank you, Ma’am, for knowing our studies despite the short amount of time you have spent with us. Thank you for returning to the Political Science Program to advise our batch. Thank you for all the guidance that you have given me despite having to change the focus of the study almost halfway through the semester. I thank you also for being understanding of the circumstances of my research. I hope I did justice to all the advice that you gave me this semester. To Prof. Clarinda Berja, my PS 199.1 professor, thank you, Ma’am, for influencing me to pursue disaster studies, and for teaching me the wisdom of human rights research. This has been one of the greatest teachings in my undergraduate life. I will forever take it with me as I take on the task of serving the people after graduation. To my batchmates, thank you for welcoming me into the program. I could not imagine being with any other batch. It has been one good ride with all of you. To my parents, thank you, for the time, energy, and resources that you have entrusted to me as I did this research. I am inspired by your dedication public service and I shall therefore aim a life towards it also. Thank you for letting me shift into political science, a course I genuinely learned to love. Thank you for your love. I will be forever indebted. Lastly, I would thank God, for sustaining me. Thank you for the grace to serve through research. In service of the Filipino people – especially the lost, the last, and the least, I will remain. 3 III. Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 INTRODUCTION 6 Statement of the Problem 7 Tentative Answer 7 Objectives of the Study 7 Review of Related Literature 8 Theoretical Framework 18 Conceptual Framework 20 Definition of Terms 21 METHODOLOGY 24 Data Matrix 24 Research Design 26 Ethical Considerations 27 Scope and Limitation 28 Significance 29 RESULTS 30 Politics of rehabilitation and ecodemocracy in post-disaster Guimaras 30 Social movements and organization in post-disaster Guimaras 35 CONCLUSION 38 Summary 39 Conclusion 40 4 Recommendations 42 Bibliography 43 Appendices 45 Appendix A. Informed Consent Form Sample 45 Appendix B. Attachment to Informed Consent Form (English) 49 Appendix C. Attachment to Informed Consent Form (Hiligaynon) 50 5 IV. INTRODUCTION Described as the worst environmental accident in the country, the 2006 M/T Solar 1 Oil Spill, was one that pierced the socioeconomic status of the island province of Guimaras. Not only that, the damage has reached the provinces of Iloilo, Guimaras, and Negros Occidental, all located in the Western Visayas Region of the country. The M/T Solar 1 Oil Spill was an eighteen-year old motor tanker that sank in the southern part of Guimaras Island, Western Visayas on August 11, 2006. It carried a total of 2.1 million liters of bunker oil, which was attributably owned by the Philippine National Oil Corporation (PNOC) in partnership with Petron, one of the gasoline giants in the country (Olavario 2009). The incident has also been called the Guimaras Oil Spill, and has been deemed as the ‘worst environmental accident in the country’. The President of the Republic of the Philippines, at that time, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo even declared a state of national calamity in order to facilitate the administrative remedies needed to address the disaster caused at eleven days after the start of the spill. The capsizing of the M/T Solar 1, sinking 639m deep, 24.6 km south of Lucasan point in Guimaras Island was such an event that managed to affect the marine life and the stretch of shores within weeks. According to reports, the motor tanker was chartered by the PNOC to deliver the 2.1 million litres of fuel oil for industrial purposes from Lamao, Bataan to Zamboanga City. The impacts of the oil spill that happened in August 2006 have been studied in its various aspects, all consistently concluding that the disaster has been nothing short of a widespread devastation – to the human population and its ecological habitat (Balena 2014). The number of studies done during the aftermath of the oil spill, particularly by groups focusing on disaster’s implications on natural resources and the livelihood of the people dependent on those natural resources reflect the veracity of the problem at hand. A decade after the incident, the case remains to be unsettled regarding the accountability of the private companies to all parties affected, the extent of 6 damage to the socioeconomic status of the province, and the checks on the policies and programs that were implemented post-disaster times. Statement of the Problem How did social movements and organizations in Guimaras Island affect the overall rehabilitation of communities affected by the MT Solar 1 Oil Spill? Tentative Answer Social movements, as the concrete manifestation of the existence of an ecodemocratic process in the society, are effective in affecting decision-making in a post-disaster community when it satisfies two conditions: (1) when the bystander public and the community that they are in contact with in their general operations sees them as productive members, and (2) when the local government recognizes their demands and the work that they do not only outside the scope of government processes, but also that which overlaps the tasks of the government. Objectives of the Study Generally, this study aims to assess the extent to which people see social movements as placing external pressures on institutions involved in man made disasters; and that they can make demands for their environmental rights and government accountability for such. Specifically, the study aims to provide light on social movements in post-disaster communities through: (1) Discussing a backgrounder on man made disasters, what their effects are, how people cope with them and what the government does or does not do in their behalf 7 (2) Giving a socioeconomic and political situationer on Guimaras, before the oil spill and ten years after it occurred (3) Assessing the results of different organizations and mobilizations in Guimaras in in demanding accountability for the socioeconomic effects of the MT Solar 1 Oil Spill (4) Determining if national movements had played a significant role in the demanding accountability for the socioeconomic effects of the oil spill and the betterment of the lives of the community in general (5) Assessing and determining if there is a need to reconcile the the government’s, private companies’ and peoples’ contention on the accountability on the disaster or the possibility of a national man-made disaster mechanism (6) Giving recommendations for the development of an effective post-disaster rehabilitation framework specifically in the case of man-made disasters such as oil spills Review of Related Literature Summary of Social Movement Theories The study of social movements has been prevalent more on the field of sociology than it was in political science. However, due to its political nature, it was then developed in the field, especially during the times when mass demonstrations were prominent in the West. In 1951, Herbert Blumer studied social movements and came up with a theory where social movements are said to arise during times of deprivation, when people who want to change the existing order of life come together to achieve it. It stressed that people with the same agitations or has been agitated for similar reasons tend to join a social movement. Their stay in the movement lets them interact with other people who also share the same frustrations, therefore 8 building esprit de corps either through informal fellowships or through identification of an in- group and out-group. These fellowships thus then create the group or the movement’s ideology that they will use in establishing a new order of life. Strategies and tactics are derived from the ideology they have agreed on and the new order of life they want to achieve. But in this Collective Behaviorist Approach, not all movements move toward a new order, some may only seek to express their values and commitments, and such will bring people together; like that of expressive movements of fashion and religion. Blumer’s theory was further improved by Tarrow’s (2011) study on contentious politics. Tarrow featured how several activists all calling for a halt in nuclear power have blocked Gaza using the symbolic flotilla. The approach becomes problematic when one takes into account that deprivation has never left any society.

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