Simularity to Philippine officials: Validate findings on China vessels dumping wastes in WPS

US-based geospatial analyst and satellite image provider Simularity on Thursday encouraged the Philippine government to validate their findings on Chinese ships dumping waste in the West Philippine Sea to see its effects on the reefs.

“My message to the government of the Philippines is: verify our findings, do your best to verify the findings," said Simularity founder and CEO Liz Derr during a forum by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

“We've done this from space because that's really all anybody can do right now because the area is really militarized but I wholeheartedly encourage the government to validate our findings, question our findings, understand the science and see for themselves," she added.

Former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, meanwhile, told a separate press conference that Simularity’s claims should be verified.

“I don’t know whether we can send a protest at this time because there has to be a validation. But if this is factual, it’s very worrisome,” he said.

Del Rosario is a vocal critic of the Duterte administration's handling of the West Philippine Sea.

Although Derr clarified that she is not a diplomat, she said the human waste dumped into the Philippine waters is the problem and there are ways to “resolve” this that don’t involve “international incident.”

Moreover, Derr confirmed that there could be more human wastes being dumped in other areas in the West Philippine Sea as what their report only include ships in the Union Banks Reef or Pagkakaisa Banks.

“That was just for the 236 ships that we saw in Union Banks in June. There are actually more ships in the Spratlys that I did not count, the ones in the Gaven or Thitu. That was just for Union Banks actually,” she said.

On Monday, Derr revealed that based on their photos, Chinese ships have been dumping raw sewage every day for several years on reefs, creating harmful Chlorophyll-a blooms in the waters.

On the other hand, she clarified the “misunderstanding” on the picture used during her presentation in a forum last Monday that shows a different ship in a different area.

“I put that picture in there because it is really impossible to really grasp the situation when you are looking at that little gray dots in the satellite image, right? So, I want to put on context of what is happening and ships dump sewage all day, every day, all over the world. This is not anything special. The fact that it is not moving makes it a concern,” she explained.

“At this point, I do regret that. It created some misunderstandings that I think had derailed the message a little bit. Our research is not based on that image. Our research is entirely based on the multi-spectral satellite images that show the Chlorophyll-a,” she added.

Derr said the “smoking gun” was the fact that the images showed big bloom of plants right where the ships are.

“Now, I don’t know if they are growing a garden there or something, but I’ve really got no other explanation why there’s bloom of Chlorophyll and plants right next to all these ships,” she said.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has earlier said the Philippine government is "verifying the correctness" of the report on Chinese vessels dumping human waste and sewage into the West Philippine Sea.

If true, Lorenzana said the Department of National Defense would confirm if the waste from "such irresponsible acts" had already reached Philippine waters.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) also said it will call the attention of the Chinese government once it verifies Simularity's report. --with Virgil Lopez/KBK, GMA News