MANILA,: The United States has agreed to pay the Philippines $2m in compensation for the damage one of its ships inflicted on over 2,000 square meters of Tubbataha Reef early last year, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said yesterday.
“I received correspondence yesterday that the US has agreed to pay the compensation, and what is being done at this time is that the documentation is being prepared,” Del Rosario told the Senate finance subcommittee deliberating on his department’s budget. He said the two governments agreed to set the amount at $2m based on “an inter-agency mechanism.”
The minesweeper USS Guardian ran aground on Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea on Jan 17 last year. The ship had to be disassembled to extricate it from the reef, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Philippine Star
