Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned from the past in considering the future of multinational companies like Unilever, which got dragged into the debate over the safety and legality of the oil depot in Pandacan.

Over the years since its establishment on UN Ave. in 1907, Unilever has been phasing out a wide range of its operations to comply with environmental laws and in keeping with its mandate to be a good neighbor.

A tour of the plant, its offices and premises will readily show that it is more conscious of maintaining the ecological balance than certain types of casual settlers and transients who regard environmental discipline with apathy.

Decades after Procter and Gamble moved out of its 40-hectare site in Tondo, causing loss of jobs, business and revenues to the community and government, the land has remained idle, unproductive.

Chito Macapagal, Unilever vice president, now wonders if the same fate will befall his company, and what it would take to rectify its classification as a "pollutive heavy" industry when neither adjective, he says, is close to the truth.

"We need to keep in mind that we fall under the category of light-to-medium nonpollutive industry," he tells "Bulong Pulungan" at Sofitel hotel.

Is it possible to keep those industries going while keeping the residents safe?

As Edward de Bono taught in the last century, why remove the bones from the fish if it’s easier to remove the flesh from the bones? An out-of-the-box solution might be to remove those residents who feel threatened by the storage of oil and the manufacture of shampoo, soap, cleansing cream, etc. Their departure would be for their own good, their own peace of mind.

Strangely enough, since 1907 Paco-Pandacan has seen the rise of more, not fewer residential and commercial buildings, so perhaps it is time to declare a truce and study the Energy Secretary’s proposal to turn the vicinity into a "national industrial zone" and put the issue to rest, once and for all.