Leukemia Cases up in Ologapo, Zambales
The Philippne Daily Inquirer
(February 17, 2000)
OLONGAPO CITY-II puzzles Ronnie Geronimo why his brother Rudy, 18, has acquired leukemia despite leading a healthy life.
Geronimo's bewilderment was fiurther stirred when doctors at the University of the Sto. Tomas Hospital's hemophilia center asked him, "Taga-Olongapo na naman (From Olongapo again)?" when he took Rudy there in August 1999.
Geronimo made the rounds of hospitals here and in Metro Manila and stumbled on a much bigger mystery: Olongapo City and Zambales, which are near the former Subic Naval Base, have an alarming number of leukemia cases.
A list he obtained from the UST medical records department showed that leukemia patients from these areas numbered 91 in 1996.
In 1995, there were 77; in 1994, 63; and in 1993, 72.
In 1992, when American troops pulled out from Subic, the leukemia patients brought to the UST Hospital totaled 82.
Of the 385 patients between 1992 and 1996, 282 were below 18 years old.
The lists of leukemia patients from the two areas for 1998 and 1999 are still being collated, Geronimo was told.
He had made a similar request to the Philippine General Hospital. While admitting receiving leukemia cases from the Subic areas, the POH has not made any separate listing of these patients.
Yet, the UST records showed there had an increasing number of reported leukemia cases despite an end to military activities at Subic, Christina Leaño, Subic staff of the People's Task Force for Bases Clean-Up, said.
At the James Gordon Hospital in Olongapo, the number of leukemia patients from February 1998 to December 1999 totaled eight.
Most of them were children. Six were from the city while two were from nearby Subic town, hospital records showed.
The Geronimos had lived at Barangay Sta. Rita for more than 20 years before they moved to Lower Kalaklan in 1998.
The, Sta. Rita River cuts across the village and drains into the Subic Bay.
The Woodward Clyde, which made the environmental baseline study for Subic, collected 41 sediment samples from the bay's harbor floor and various river and drainage canals and analyzed these for a range of heavy metals and organic compounds.
The Sta. Rita River was not included in the study.
But sediments from the bay showed that metals like arsenic, barium, copper, lead, Mercury and zinc exceeded the standard levels, the study said,
During high tide, water from the bay enters the Sta. Rita River.
The US Navy also operated a communication radar atop Mt. Sta. Rita. It is believed to have emitted radiation.
Unclassified documents from the US Navy showed that no complaints arose from its operation.
The US Navy pulled out the radar in 1902. In its place is a 45-megawatt communications tower used by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, the Department of Transportation and communications, the cell phone company Globe. and the Olongapo City government, an SBMA official told the INQUIRER
Upper Kalaklan used to be a dump, the PTFGC learned from former base workers.
The Sta. Rita River also cuts across this site, its down sloped possibly reaching Lower Kalaklan.
Lower Kalaklan is near Subic's public works center vehicle maintenance. yard. Here, the leukemia-causing Benzene was found in one well. Woodward Clyde identified that place as among the 11 areas that needed cleanup at Subic.
Doctors have not made definitive findings if Rudy's acute mixed lineage leukemia, amore serious form of cancer of the blood, was in any way linked to toxic pollutants, Geronimo said.
He had a strong hunch the pollutants do, pointing to the startlingly high number of-leukemia cases.
Not one of Rudy's parents had worked at Subic. None of his parents or his relatives had been afflicted with leukemia, Geronimo said.
TONETTE OREJAS
PDI Central Luzon Desk