The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) confirmed Tuesday that a oil spill caused by a sunken motor tanker in the waters of Oriental Mindoro has reached Tingloy and Verde Island in Batangas.

“It’s positive. It’s confirmed. There are traces of the oil spill in Verde Island and Tingloy,” Capt. Victorino Acosta, station commander of PCG Batangas, told dzBB.

Verde Island is a center of marine biodiversity, environmentalists said.

Acosta said barangays Corona and Sto. Domingo in Tingloy were affected by the oil spill.

“Here in Tingloy, it (the oil spill) is thin. We only collected two to three liters of oil, so we were able to prevent it from spreading further,” Acosta said.

He said no new traces of the oil spill are flowing into the province.

“We have collected 100 liters of oil (from Verde Island). But this morning, there were no new sightings. What the Coast Guard is cleaning up now are the remnants of yesterday’s sightings,” Acosta said.

Acosta said the PCG had prepared for the possibility of the oil spill reaching Batangas two weeks earlier by sending a strike team.

The shoreline and seaborn patrols of the PCG will continue despite no new traces of the oil spill being sighted, he said.

“As of this day, we can say that the oil spill in Batangas is under control,” Acosta said.

He said there was no fishing ban imposed in the area but leisure activities like scuba diving are prohibited.

MT Princess Empress, which was loaded with around 800,000 liters of industrial fuel, sank in the waters of Naujan Oriental Mindoro on February 28. Jaspearl Tan/DMS