SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—A US-registered oil products tanker carrying some 39 million gallons of military fuel was forced to leave the Philippine shores on Thursday after it failed to obtain a diplomatic clearance from the government.
rThe vessel, Yosemite Trader, was scheduled to transfer the fuel from a US military facility at Red Hill, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to a commercial storage facility in this former American Naval base on Thursday morning, according to the US Embassy in Manila.
But the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), which manages this free port, clarified on Friday that the supposed fuel transfer to the Philippine Coastal Storage and Pipeline Corporation here did not push through.
“In the morning of the scheduled arrival, however, ship agent Parsh Marine requested the cancellation of the vessel’s entry clearance, accordingly, due to the absence of a “diplomatic clearance" from the Department of Foreign Affairs,” the SBMA said in a statement.
As a result, Yosemite Trader did not enter the waters of Subic Bay and was not able to discharge its cargo at the storage facility, as earlier reported by the US Embassy and some media outlets, the SBMA said.
US Embassy spokesperson Kanishka Gangopadhyay said the planned fuel transfer had undergone proper channels and logistics contracts with Philippine counterparts.
But Sen. Imee Marcos, the chairperson of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, raised suspicions on Wednesday over the fuel shipment as she slammed what she described as the "silence" of the two countries about the alleged prepositioning of military supplies in the Philippines amid a potential conflict between the US and China over Taiwan.
"The Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) is not a license to leave the Filipino people in the dark. Subic is not an EDCA site, so where in Philippine territory will millions of gallons of oil be stored?" Marcos said in a statement.
She added: "This is not just an issue of foreign policy but of Philippine sovereignty, even environmental safety. The government better have a clear explanation for this."
Port call request cancelled
Armie Llamas, officer in charge of the SBMA’s office of the deputy administrator for corporate communications, said the tanker Yosemite Trader had canceled its request for a port call, based on information coming from the agency’s Seaport department.
Llamas did not say the reason for the cancellation, noting that the SBMA earlier received a communication from the US Navy on Tuesday for the planned fuel transfer in Subic, a former US naval base. She did not elaborate.
Also on Thursday, the US Embassy in Manila confirmed that the commercial tanker was already in the vicinity of Subic Bay to transfer its cargo of fuel that came from the US military facility at Red Hill, Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii.
The Yosemite Trader was carrying “safe, clean fuel” and arrangements for the cargo’s transfer and storage in Subic were done through “proper channels,” according to a statement issued by the embassy’s spokesperson, Kanishka Gangopadhyay.
“All arrangements for the transfer and storage of this fuel were made through the proper channels, using established logistics contracts with Philippine commercial entities,” Gangopadhyay said in his statement.
The embassy also explained that it was just “one of multiple shipments’’ of fuel from Pearl Harbor to other locations in the Indo-Pacific region.
Members of Solidarity to Oppose War, a movement for peace with social justice, question the massive military fuel transfer from a US Navy storage facility in Hawaii to the Philippines during the Pandesal Forum at the Kamuning Bakery in Quezon City on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. PHOTOS BY ISMAEL DE JUAN
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