- By Artchil B. Fernandez
ABSTRACT
The study was conducted to primarily determine the social and economic consequences of the MT Solar 1 oil spill in Nueva Valencia, Guimaras. This was a purely descriptive research and a one-shot survey design was utilized. There were 309 household heads that served as the study’s respondents. The statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software was used to analyze the data. Results of the study revealed that the majority of the respondents were males, Roman Catholics and fisher folks. They are in their middle ages, with elementary or high school level education whose average household size is 4.73. Results also showed that after the oil spill, the proportion of the respondents who reported an increase of incidence of the top three illness, namely: pin-ot dughan, pangatol panit and lignin ulo, was found to be significant. The majority of the respondents reported that their personal recreational activities were affected by the oil spill but not the community recreational activities. There was a significant decrease in community cooperation and a significant increase of community conflict after the oil spill. Before the oil spill, fishing and related activities were the main source of income of a high majority of the household heads and their mean monthly income was Php 9661.41. After the oil spill, almost half of the respondents had no main source of income with bunker cleaning as the main source of income where their mean monthly income is Php 2602.51. The crop in mean monthly income was statistically significant at 5% level and the drop was also statistically significant for both the island and mainland residents. The perceived serious personal problems of the household heads after the oil spill were: a) financial, b) livelihood, and c) feed while the perceived serious problems of the family of the household heads after the oil spill were: a) food, b) financial, and c) livelihood. Serious problems of the community as perceived by the household heads after the oil spill were: a) livelihood, b) problems with barangays officials, and c) financial. It is worth noting that the perceived personal, family and community problems are the same only that their rank varied in each category. Perceived urgent personal needs of the household heads after the oil spill were: a) financial, b) food, and c) livelihood. Perceived urgent needs of the household heads’ family after the oil spill were: a) food, b) financial, and livelihood. Urgent needs of the community as perceived by the household heads after the oil spill were: a) livelihood, b) food, and c) financial. It is again worth noting that the perceived urgent personal, family and community needs of the respondents were the same and they only varied in each category. Desired alternative livelihood of the respondents were: a) livestock/poultry, b) negosyo and c) gardening project.