CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Another worker was reported to have died in yet another accident the other day at the Hanjin Heavy Industries (Hanjin) shipyard facility at Barangay Caway in Subic, Zambales.
Reports reaching Camp Olivas here identified the latest victim as Arvee Mahinay, 19, of Gawad Kalinga housing project in Barangay Pinagbuhatan in Pasig City.
He was the 14th worker to be killed at the Korean shipyard facility. Last month, 31-year-old Benjie Gamolo was hit by a steel beam while at work at Korean shipyard’s assembly shop and died the following day.
The report from the Subic police said Mahinay died from a broken skull and multiple fractures in his body after he reportedly fell from a dry-dock beam at about 4 p.m. last Wednesday. The victim was reportedly a hired worker of Hanjin’s sub-contractor Bodah employment agency.
The Subic police quoted Rommel Doble, Hanjin safety officer, as source of the information. The victim’s remains were autopsied later at the Subic Funeral Homes.
This, as members who resigned from Task Force Hanjin in Zambales said they formed an independent task force because they were "tired of traditional politics" amid "gross human rights violations" at the shipyard of the Korean firm.
"We resigned but did not quit," said former vice governor Ramon Lacbain II who was earlier appointed by Zambales Gov. Amor Deloso as chairman of the provincial government’s Task Force Hanjin tasked to oversee the welfare of people displaced by the project and the shipyard’s workers, as well as to protect the environment at the facility.
In a letter, Lacbain said he and other members of the task force resigned and created the non-government organization People’s Task Force on Hanjin and Subic Bay Inc. (PTFH-SB) which they registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
While saying he and other resigned members of the government task force were not defying Deloso, Lacbain said "we resigned because we are already tired of traditional politics".
"Oftentimes, whenever we faced Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) and Hanjin (officials) in trying to settle the problems concerning gross human rights violations emanating from Hanjin operation, (they) would not directly face us," he said.
"Instead, they would run to the Governor for cover. They would use, and abuse, every opportunity to make the Office of the Governor as an excuse to avoid negotiating with us directly and settle the problems squarely. Probably because they knew that the task force didn’t play politics," Lacbain also said.
Fourteen workers, including Mahinay, have died in accidents at the Hanjin shipyard since the company started operations at Subic in 2006.
The militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), in a statement reacting to the death of the latest victim, said "Work at Hanjin is so dangerous that no less than 4,300 workers have suffered in accidents due to falls, burns and punctures which resulted in fractures, loss of body parts, lacerated wounds, dislocations and body sprains" since 2006.
Lacbain said he and other members formed an independent task force "because we saw the need to strengthen and expand the task force on Hanjin by including as members all interested sectors of the community, something that was not possible if we remained under the Office of the Governor".
He cited "the need to have an independent task force to force those responsible for causing the many problems in Hanjin concerning people’s rights and environmental protection to accept responsibility, correct the errors and improve the situation".
"We resigned not in defiance of the Governor, as what our detractors announce, but in support of his good cause for the people of Zambales," he stressed.
Lacbain said that in the resignation letter of his group addressed to Deloso, "we even asked for the Governor’s support because we believed that with him our fight would even become stronger".
Still, Lacbain said he understood Deloso’s accommodation of SBMA and Hanjin officials amid controversies, but noted that such accommodations were made "for nothing but purely political reasons."
"We understand that in politics – especially as it is practiced in this country – certain considerations, allowances, leeway and conveniences have to be made for nothing but purely political reasons," Lacbain said in his letter.
He said that under the local government’s task force, "we felt that our actions were somehow limited".
"We oftentimes found ourselves at a loss in the face of the two giants – SBMA and Hanjin. Out of respect to the Governor and for fear that we might harm his office, we oftentimes took caution and tempered our boldness in fighting for people’s rights," he said.
Lacbain said that while he and his colleagues resigned from Deloso’s task force, they did not quit in their mission "to fight for people’s rights and protect the environment" by creating another independent task force which he now also heads as chairman.
