The Philippines will ask the United States to pay US$1.4 million in compensation for damage caused by a US warship to a protected coral reef, the manager of the reef said on Saturday.
The amount is based on studies by Philippine agencies including the coast guard that found the USS Guardian damaged at least 2,345 square metres of the protected Tubbataha reef, park superintendent Angelique Songco said.
She said a letter requesting compensation would be sent to the US embassy next week, stressing this is the amount required by a law passed to protect the reef, a Unesco World Heritage site in a remote area of the Sulu Sea.
“We don’t want to be dishonest. It is just a simple process: measure it correctly and then they pay. That is all. It is very straightforward,” she said.
Earlier estimates said as much as 4,000 square metres of the reef had been destroyed when the USS Guardian minesweeper ran aground on Tubbataha on January 17 but Songco said their studies found the damage was less than feared.
It took the salvage teams until March 29 to remove the last of the 68-metre USS Guardian, which had to be cut into pieces so it could be lifted clear without damaging the reef further.
The incident stirred nationalist anger with demands that the United States pay a large amount of compensation for damaging the reef, which is world renowned for its rich marine life.