JAPAN is set to start dumping 1.3 million tons of nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, estimated to take at least 40 years to finish. Why are most of the Philippines’ media and lawmakers quiet?

Would the same silent treatment be extended if the subject was China?

The fishermen in Fukushima themselves and other fishing communities in Japan have protested Tokyo’s decision to release the wastewater into the ocean, even though the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) has offered them compensation. People from South Korea, Pacific Island nations and the Philippines have also protested Japan’s unilateral decision. Leaders from neighbouring nations have also voiced their concerns, and reasonably requested for adequate and transparent consultation and time to be given to better assess the potential impacts.

Even the Group of Seven (G7) did not give its unanimous support to the move, in contrast to Japan’s claims that the G7 “welcomes the release of Fukushima wastewater.” German Environment Secretary Steffi Lemke clarified that, while she respected the efforts of [Japan] after the nuclear accident, Germany couldn’t welcome the discharge of the contaminated water. The G7 communiqué does not say the G7 ministers “welcome” the release of the water, but instead says they “support the IAEA’s (International Atomic Energy Agency) independent review … and that it will not cause any harm to humans and the environment.”

Scientists, like Ferenc DalnokiVeress, a Nobel Prize laureate in physics who worked at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Germany and Princeton University, and who was part of a team to review the safety measures Tepco implemented, said: “It’s like a student handing in a poorly written assignment with no effort … I found so many problems. Then, when we met with Tepco, they dumped a massive PowerPoint two hours before the meeting …!”

In fairness, Japan Times allowed the position of the team of scientists, representing the 18-nation Pacific Island Forum, to be published. “The bottom line,” the scientists said, “is that it is impossible to assess the impact of any release plan without first knowing what is in the tanks…”

“Once the discharge commences, the opportunity to examine total costs and weigh the ocean discharge option against other alternatives will have been lost,” they warned.

The US National Association of Marine Laboratories, an organization of more than 100 memberlaboratories, also expressed their opposition, “there is a lack of adequate and accurate scientific data supporting Japan’s assertion of safety and an abundance of data demonstrating serious concerns about releasing radioactively contaminated water.”

The Western media often include the IAEA report that backs the safety of Fukushima wastewater release, as some sort of safety assurance, but this fails to question the inherent conflict of interest, given that the agency is supposed to promote the use of nuclear energy. There is also a foreign report, based on an anonymous source, that Tepco donated 1 million euros to the IAEA, which Japan has denied but the IAEA has remained quiet about. The UK’s The Independent did report in May 2022 that Japan was to donate $2 million to the IAEA for its efforts to secure the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities.

Japan has rejected available alternative, more expensive, options of storage and discharge.

Double standard of Senator Hontiveros?

Have Senators Risa Hontiveros and Francis Tolentino extended support for our fishermen who have pleaded for Japan to delay the wastewater’s release? The lawmakers would rather have the Filipino taxpayers pay for the bringing of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) issue against China to the United Nations, which the Inquirer and the Philippines Star headlined on their front pages, but hardly a mention on the rallying cries by the fisherfolks and environmentalists against Japan’s plans to dump nuclear wastewater into the ocean. Is Hontiveros aware that:

– 147 countries ignored the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) decision?

– 33 countries, including the European Union, “acknowledge the ruling but do not call for compliance”?

– Seven countries oppose the award, including Russia and Taiwan?

– Only seven countries demanded that China comply with the award — the US is not a signatory to the Unclos (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), and the rest are mostly US allies?

This information was first reported by Rigoberto Tiglao in his Manila Times column. His source? “The Asian Maritime Transparency Institute, a think-tank/propaganda platform the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies set up to disseminate US views on the South China disputes.”

Did Hontiveros ask Taiwan’s leader Tsai Ing-wen why Taipei opposed the PCA decision?

Untold stories of our fishermen in WPS

It is an unfortunate truth that our Filipino fishermen have been the

poorest sectors of our society. In September 2016, then-senator Francis Pangilinan reported that the average fishermen earned P178 a day. But their lot improved significantly under the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

According to a Philippine Statistics Authority report, from 2015 to 2018 poverty decreased across the board for fishing communities facing the WPS, and their catch even increased.

Fisherman Sofrinio Lopez told the media that Filipino fishermen in the WPS are not experiencing harassment from the Chinese, and asks why the media are entering the area when everyone knows that it will only provoke tensions (PTV Ulat Bayan).

“There is peaceful co-existence between Chinese and Filipino fishermen,” an Inquirer story in 2019 quoted Eric Naboa, president of the Cato Fishermen Association.

Life has significantly improved for our fishermen on Pag-asa Island

For the first time, the remote fishing village saw 24/7 electricity, new road infrastructures, a new pier and runway, and supply of fishermen boats, which led to an increase in tourism, as well as the villagers’ productivity, said Larry Hugo, president of the Kalayaan Palawan Farmers Fishermen Association, in a report by SMNI, which sent to the WPS a reporter who was after an accurate story, not sensationalized drama.

What is often not reported is the significant growth in income enjoyed by the fishermen-turned-boatmen/tour guides, especially those who are the beneficiaries of the increased number of Asian travelers. At the peak of Chinese arrivals before the pandemic, the fishermen reported that their incomes increased at least three to four times. But there are now reports that our Philippine consulates in China are limiting the issuance of visas and charging excess fees. Who stands to gain from such maneuvers?

As IDSI has written in the past and facts on the ground have proven: “We have achieved relative peace in the SCS (South China Sea) with China and other neighbors, our fishermen reported increased fish catch on top of major economic benefits received from China to develop our economy (across trade, infrastructure, technology, agriculture, education, etc.) — all gained not from military alliances, but from peaceful engagements already benefiting millions of our kababayan (countrymen).”

Some Philippine politicians and media seem to now like playing up issues, instead of clarifying situations, that they often have not researched on — very much in US and Western style instead of the Asian approach of looking for common ground.

The forces that create division and hostility in nations in the world are now in the Philippines.

We should make every effort to keep out these provocateurs who profit from military conflicts they stir up with their NGOs, think tanks, media networks, and eventually, by their command of our armed forces; but at the cost of the lives of the countries they enter, not their own in the hundreds of thousands killed like in Ukraine, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Venezuela, etc. Time for the Filipinos to