NUEVA VALENCIA, Philippines (AFP) - The Philippines has said that a massive oil spill could get much worse without urgent help to lift a stricken tanker, still loaded with fuel, off the ocean floor.

The spill, which has already devastated nature sites and covered miles of coastline in black sludge, has been caused by only a fraction of the oil on the doomed Solar I seeping out of the ship's hold, officials said.

Editorial, Sydney Morning Herald
THE Federal Government is rushing to be seen doing something as the weeks of high oil prices stretch into months and start to take their toll on its popularity. Having failed to contain public anger with the line that the oil price is not its department, the Government is now offering subsidies to help motorists convert their cars to liquid petroleum gas, or buy new LPG-powered cars. Service station owners will be helped to sell petrol blended with 10 per cent ethanol. Those are the big-ticket items in its energy package, which also covers oil exploration and some alternative energy initiatives. If the Government looks as if it was caught napping on the issue - and it does - the flurry of activity is intended to give the impression that it is now wide awake and very, very concerned. Though, like someone newly awoken from a long doze, it does not give the appearance of being entirely on top of things, we should at least be grateful that its initial, hurried response has done no harm.