Large-scale plunder

Dry numbers don’t do the crime justice. The reef complex off the coast of Cotabato reportedly decimated by poachers and stripped of coral, rare turtles and other marine life cover an area about 7,000 hectares in size. Unless one is a geologist or surveyor, or quick with mental calculations, that figure doesn’t sink in fast. Put into comprehensible terms, however, the enormity of the crime and the vastness of the crime scene, as it were, acquire contours and dimensions we can, at last, wrap our brains around. The so-called “rape of the ocean” destroyed coral reefs across an area roughly twice the size of the City of Manila, said senior marine biologist Ludivina Labe of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.

The reason for that epic size? The black corals that were harvested, said Labe, “are not lush or bushy. They’re found on reef slopes. One piece is equal to one colony,” and only two or three colonies of black corals are found in one hectare of sea bed. Hence, the still unnamed poachers whose seized contraband led to the discovery of the reef destruction had to trawl vast distances of sea bed, wreaking incalculable devastation in their wake, just to gather the 21,169 black coral pieces that were then trussed up, hidden in two container vans and declared as a shipment of rubber, before the smuggling attempt was foiled.

The seized goods, presumably destined for sale abroad to collectors of exotic marine specimens, had an estimated market value of at least P35 million, said Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez. That’s a big enough windfall to lure unscrupulous folk with profit in their minds to break the country’s laws against the plunder of rare and endangered marine life in its waters.

As it turns out, it’s not only the promise of vast sums of money that’s driving the shadowy international syndicates behind these illegal activities. They are also being helped, ironically, by the very law that seeks to protect the country’s marine resources—or, more properly, by the lack of teeth of that law. As the militant fisherfolk group Pamalakaya pointed out, the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 imposes the lightest of fines and/or jail time for violators, which means poachers with enough money, influence or political clout behind them can easily run rings around the country’s judicial system. “While the law bans the gathering and selling of corals, the punishment of violators is very light, with imprisonment of six months to two years and a fine of P2,000 to P20,000,” said Pamalakaya chair Fernando Hicap.

Contrast those amounts—P2,000 to P20,000—with the estimated value of the coral contraband about to be smuggled out: P35 million. Obviously, the ridiculously outdated fisheries code needs to have its penal provisions strengthened up if the government is to ever begin waging a decent fight against moneyed syndicates preying on the country’s last remaining patches of pristine marine environment.

That is more so because rebuilding the corals’ ecosystem takes a long time. “It took 25 years or even more for these corals to grow… They only grow one centimeter a month,” said Labe. And some of the other animals harvested with the corals were much older—a 40-inch Hawksbill turtle for instance, that was estimated to be 80 to 100 years old. When found, that turtle had become a dead, stuffed ornament. Who in his right mind would prefer to have such a rare, magnificent specimen hanging lifeless in one’s study, gathering dust and stuffed with straw?

But, clearly, there are people who would pay a fortune for it. And now, with this botched smuggling attempt laying bare the shocking pillage of the country’s oceans, the government must throw the book at them, their suppliers, consigners and enablers. Pamalakaya’s demand sounds just right: the Bureau of Customs and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources must do all they can to identify and bring charges against those responsible for the reef destruction off the South Cotabato coast.

Such a brazen and wide-ranging flouting of the law could not have happened without the collusion of people up and down the bureaucratic chain. Who booked the boats that went out to sea? Who paid the locals that undertook the harvesting? Whose warehouse kept the goods and packaged them for shipment? Who in the government regulatory agencies averted their eyes or prepared the paperwork while all this was going on?

If it takes those corals 25 long years to grow back, make sure their human scourges spend at least as much time in jail.