Monaco's Princess Caroline
lobbies for toxic victims
Posted: 11:13 PM (Manila Time) | Sept. 30, 2002
By Tonette Orejas
Inquirer News Service
Letter to Bush
CLARK SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE -- Princess Caroline of Monaco took the cudgels for Filipino toxic waste victims and residents of communities outside former United States military bases in the Philippines, according to a group helping toxic waste victims.
Princess Caroline, in a letter to US President George W. Bush, urged the latter to start the "prompt instigation of procedures to remedy the dangerous condition in which they (Filipino toxic waste victims) are forced to live."
The Princess is the president of the Association Mondiale des Amis de l'Enfance (Amade or World Association of Children's Friends) founded by her late mother Princess Grace.
She lamented the "tragic failure" of the American military to rid the former Clark Air Base in Pampanga and Subic Naval Base in Zambales of hazardous waste before it left in 1991.
Philippine senators, voting 12-11 to reject a new bases treaty in 1991, ordered Clark and Subic closed, as well as five support facilities in various parts of Luzon.
The military bases in the Philippines were used by the US for almost a century. Clark and Subic, the biggest outside of the US mainland, were used for the US wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.
Princess Caroline sent the letter to Bush on Aug. 2. A copy of the letter was faxed to the Alliance for Bases Clean-Up International (ABCI) and the Amade Philippine chapter on Sept. 16, the 11th anniversary of the bases treaty rejection.
She also encouraged Bush to "expedite the necessary counter-measures to redress this critical and life-threatening situation."
Since the bases' closure and pullout of US troops from the country, the ABCI and Amade Philippine chapter have been campaigning for the cleanup.
Almost 200 children and adults who had lived or worked in the former bases had died of various ailments, many through various types of cancer.
Two government-sponsored studies, privately-funded examination of the soil and water sources, and a report by the General Accounting Office, the investigating arm of the US Congress, have confirmed the presence of hazardous chemicals and the pollution of soil, water and air in the former US military bases.
Princess Caroline asked Bush to "provide much needed humanitarian aid and compensation to the victims and their families."
The Amade Philippines and ABCI raised the same concerns to the Princess in a letter in April.
The two groups, through lawyer Eric Mallonga, Amade Philippines president and ABCI honorary board member, presented to Princess Caroline a compilation of photographs of disabled and sick residents, mostly of children, and various documents and studies confirming the existence of toxic wastes in the former bases.