William Aguilar, Central Luzon deputy coordinator of the Workers Movement for Change (WMC), said the workers sustained various degrees of burns after fire backfired from the coil in a boiler at about 2 p.m. last Monday. The workers were removing scaffoldings within the plant when the accident happened.
Aguilar said all the victims were contractual workers hired by the firm AssistCo, a contractor of GN power Plant.
The critically injured workers have remained at the intensive care unit of the Baypointe Hospital in Subic, Zambales, while two others were treated for lesser degree of burns, he said.
Aguilar identified the victims as Leandro Pascasio Jr., Edgar Rosas, Ryan Enriquez, Gilbert Ednacot, and Harold Visencio. He could not say, however, who among them were at the hospital ICU.
“The accident only boosts the call of the labor sector for more humane conditions in working areas, liveable wages, and recognition of their democratic rights and final end to all forms of contractualization, such as sub-contracting and contracting as allowed by Department Order 174 of the Department of Labor and Employment,” Aguilar said.
WMC secretary general Anna Gonzales said her group is monitoring what assistance GN Power Plant would extend to the victims, noting that while the workers were sub-contracted, the coal plant was still the “main contractor.”
For his part, Aguilar said “the incident also indicates how dangerous coal fire powered plants are, even if they use so-called state-of-the-art technology.”
“This is the reason why we are urging people to protest plans for the establishment of new coal-fired power plants, such as the proposed RP Energy Plant in Subic, as well as those proposed in Mariveles and Limay in Bataan and Masinloc in Zambales,” he stressed.
