Kuan Yu enrages school

Bwisit nga Frank Drilon!

Kuan Yu Global Technologies, Corp. dungol gid: it has no equipment nor trained manpower, how could a water purifier and bottler wrest a multi-million contract?

Leo Amisco, a teacher of Botongon Elementary school is grumbling against the ineptness of Kuan Yu, the lucky contractor which wrested the P87 M job of cleaning up the oil spill.

Brgy. Botongon is the worst hit when Napocor’s Power Barge 103 was battered by storm surges on the rocky shore of the fishing village that supertyphoon Yolanda whipped up November 8, 2013.

 

Kuan Yu’s latest caper enrages the school community: it helped itself to the school pump, took out its PVC pipe and attached it to its pump to draw seawater with which  to spray on oil sludge on rocks and concrete pavement. The pipe could no longer be used to draw potable water from the school well.

(Note: In our consultation with victims in Estancia, January 23 at the town center itself, Botongon still reeks of searing, biting stench in day time as the heat from the sun whips up benzene fumes, among others.
(Amisco brought to my attention an inaccuracy. Kuan Yu people did not pull out the pump from the well so to use its pipe to draw water from the sea. They actually sunk into the school well their own contaminated pipe to pump fresh water a with which to spray on rocks, walls and concrete pavements using a compressor to wash off bunker fuel. now, it is the school' swell that is contaminated. -- Mga dungol gid!)

Gov. Arthur D. Defensor, Sr. ordered the forced evacuation oF 480 plus families November 22, 2013 due to high level of benzene fumes emitted by the bunker fuel that spread to more than 10 kilometers from the Napocor pier at Botongon, Estancia.

Kuan Yu the contractor has no track record in oil spill clean up and salvaging yet it still wrenched the juicy contract in a shadowy public bidding November 20. (A day earlier, Sen Franklin Drilon named before Iloilo reportors Kuan Yu as the winning bidder.)

It has no equipment nor trained manpower. It still rented equipment and recruited fresh manpower. It’s laborers used only pails and nylon sacks to collect bunker fuel and debris.

Kuan Yu has only P62,500 paid up capital and engages in water purifying and bottling. It’s personnel were not even provided safety gadgets like gloves and gas masks.

Kuan Yu finally rolled its sleeves December 8 by siphoning the remaining bunker fuel from the barge — using a pump borrowed from the Coast Guard..

In photos below, taken this morning at the Capitol Canteen, are Amisco and provincial employee Larry Locara who expressed shock how an unqualified contractor was given a contract it could not do.

That's one question everybody asks.

Brgy. Botongon Elementary School resumed classes January 6, 2014 – under tents as all it’s school buildings were ruined by supertyphoon Yolanda. Classes though were suspended that at 8:30 am that same day because the sun heated up the uncollected bunker fuel on the shore, whipping up fumes of benzene, among other toxins.

Amisco added that Kuan Yu personnel used only pails nod nylon sacks in the clean up, collecting 10 drums of debris daily, which is short by 10 barrels than that spewed from the damaged barge.

Still, Kuan Yu used the rickety pump borrowed from the Philippine Coast Guard to siphon off the contents from the ill fated Power Barge 103.

To clean up the sludge off the shore and the concrete walls and steps of the public school, Kuan Yu people used a compressor spray with the polluted sea as source.

That merely transfer the dirt from the concrete stairs and rocks to the sand and soil.

Amisco bewailed that they only discovered lately that despite warnings, Kuan Yu people sneaked into the school compound to pull out the school’s pipe in pumping sea water for the “clean up.” 

“Dungol gid” fumes Amisco. “We need that pipe for our hand pump. Now we won’t use that because it is already contaminated with bunker fuel.”

Kuan Yu people also buried within the locality the dried up slabs of bunker fuel instead of collecting them and disposing them elsewhere, adds Amisco.

Lately, 50 oil spill victims filed a damaged suit against The National Power Corp. (Napocor) and the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Corp. (PSALM).

Their counsel, the National. Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) will also sue Kuan Yu and the Philippine Coast Guard in their amended complaînt.

The contract smells of corruption: how could an inept and unqualified Kuan Yu corner the P87 M contract?

That’s one question everybody asks.