A group of Philippine fishermen has filed a damage suit against the company that operates the Philippines' only undersea natural gas pipeline, seeking 250 million pesos (US$4.7 million) in compensation for loss of income, an official said Wednesday.
Thaddeus E. Venturanza, vice governor of Mindoro Oriental province and lawyer for the Fishermen's Association of Bansud, said the group is not demanding that Shell Philippines Exploration BV stop operating its 504-kilometer (315-mile) pipeline.
"What they want is a rectification, that their previous earnings be restored or that they be assisted in recovering their income in the past," Venturanza said in a telephone interview.
The group, representing about 100 fishermen from Bansud town in Oriental Mindoro, filed the suit Monday at the Regional Trial Court in nearby Pinamalayan town.
The fishermen claimed their individual income averaged 4,848 pesos (US$91) monthly before the pipeline started operating in 2001 but plunged to 573 pesos (US$10.81).
Company officials in Manila were not available for comment.
The company, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell, is developing the 79.5 billion cubic meter (2.65 trillion cubic foot) offshore Malampaya gas field off Palawan province, west of Mindoro. The gas is piped to Batangas province on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the north and fuels three power plants that have a combined capacity of 2,700 megawatts.
The US$4.5 billion natural gas-to-power project was inaugurated by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in October 2001 in the country's bid to reduce dependency on imported petroleum.
Venturanza said fishermen complained about alleged noise created by the pipeline, claiming it scares away fish from the waters off Bansud as well as other coastal towns on Mindoro Oriental. He said the company reported there was no such noise.
Earlier, the fishermen told reporters that one species belonging to the tuna family, once abundant in the area, has disappeared.
"Right after the pipeline was laid, the fishermen lost their earnings because the coral reefs were destroyed," Venturanza said. He said the pipeline runs along the seabed about one to five kilometers (half a mile to three miles) off the shore, well within the 15-kilometer (nine-mile) municipal waters. Venturanza said the fishermen have no scientific evidence linking the pipeline to their loss of income. "We only have circumstantial evidence, but in a civil case we do not need proof beyond reasonable doubt. We only need preponderance of evidence that there is a connection (of the loss of income) to the laying of the pipeline," he said.