I’m back and I have a lot of catching up to do. I have been in and out of the field and had no time to do some writing and posting. I received an email from Dr. Peter Rubec with an attached copy of what Horge wrote ages ago.
Horge, I think one the submission of samples (food and ornamental) to the CDT lab was an enforcement thing that Dante Delabahan and Lawyer Lorenzo formerly of ELAC (Environmental Legal Assistant Center) and I did. An enforcement group encountered a boat from Marinduque, base in Pagbilao collecting among other species the highly coveted blue tangs and Leopardus groupers. The boat had no permit to operate in the Ancestral Domain waters but was carrying a permit of BFAR Region 4 to operate within the region on marine products. A very vague permit that if read by the uninformed will think that they are legally permitted to operate in any area. These collectors had no nets at all, not even scoop nets. They had just been fishing for a day and yet they had thousands of fishes in oxygenated plastic bags. I was requested to help inspect the boat for cyanide, question the collectors (very interesting revealing answers that made me start doubting MAC’s sincerity capability, and ability), choose the samples to be sent to the CDT laboratory, witness the packing of the samples to protect the integrity of the specimens being sent and help in the preparation of affidavits. I also had to pick the site where to release the confiscated fishes.
Here was what is interesting. I coordinated the sending of those samples to the BFAR CDT Lab in Manila and to be sure nothing goes wrong talked to the chemist. We needed and beg for the results to be able to file the case within 48 hours or the enforcement group could be charge for arbitrary detention if the collectors and boat captain were not released within the time legally allowed by law. The chemist promised to work overtime but being undermanned did not make the 48 hours deadline. The arrested persons had to be release and only the boat impounded. After more than 10 days and several phone calls I finally got the results by phone only. All samples were highly positive, water and all the fishes. The chemist at that time told me that a copy of the results would be sent by fax first to Coron. We never got it. Somehow somewhere communications got fouled up. Base on the phone call and the assurance that the fax and hard copy was coming the criminal case was filed although the collectors and the boat captain were already released so the boat can be confiscated in favor of the government. We waited for several weeks more for the certificate of the CDT. Nothing came. Then we got the shock of our lives. A certificated stating result to be negative was faxed (LISTEN TO THIS: FAXED NO HARD COPY) direct to the prosecutor hearing the case in Puerto Princessa. Based on this fax copy the prosecutor dismisses the case immediately. (Shows you how long the tentacles of this problem is) The Law allows a 15 days grace period to contest the verdict. The head of the lab that by the way is a very straight and honest lady was not present during the test of these samples and was at that time unavailable when I called trying to contact her. I burned the phone lines to the BFAR CDT lab again and to try to talk to the chemist that said that the test results were positive. She was unavailable. So I requested for whoever was on the phone to look into their logbook and see if any results were faxed and hard copies sent out. I also asked the person on the phone pointblank if the test results where positive or negative. The reply was “I do not know sir.” I knew then something was very funny.
The office of the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development in Puerto Princessa one of the complainants was able to obtain the faxed with negative results of the test from the court so we thought it better to seek audience with the BFAR Director. I went flew down to Manila and went to the MAC’s office talked to the Country Director and told him that he being a friend of the BFAR Director should arrange a meeting for us. I told him who was one of the suspected financiers of this incident and that even if these people have disappeared and what they say has become hearsay, gossips can still do a lot of damage and just shows how useless MAC really is. (I was irritated because to add insult to injury on this matter the sister boat was arrested again in another part of the island a few days after the case was dismiss. This time, they were caught with hard evidences but were released after some highly private questionable negotiations as related to me by the Lawyer of ELAC and Dante Delabajan another ELAC person. I suspected that enforcement groups have lost their faith on the system and would rather profit from it than letting the others profit from their efforts. Again in another incident later after this I was again called in because another of its sister boat was arrested in another part of the hundreds of islands there and a squeeze bottles found, again tested to be positive with cyanide. I have not heard anything about the case anymore.
Luckily before the meeting with the BFAR Director I was able to get hold of the chief of the CDT lab section and told her what happened. I also told her I could identify the chemist that told me the test was positive. In the meeting with the Director and the Chief of the Lab fax copy of the test results of the certificate stating the tests results were negative was presented. The copy obtained by the PCSD from the prosecutor that we all were now able to read surprised us. It was not the species sent by our group to be tested. The chief of the lab had to go back to the lab and check the records before the real test results came out. BFAR was a victim of switching BIG TIME and to top it all according to BFAR later it was some high-ranking military person who took the results from the lab and was the one who faxed it to the prosecutor.
The case was refilled but the tragedy is the boat captain is gone, so with the poor highly exploited guilty collectors, and the boat and its sister boats are still wrecking havoc in other places up to now.
Two pictures attached. (One boat inspection and the evidence being prepared with the boat captain present.)
Quoting Horge:
---All the BFAR regular staff I met make do with what they have, and fight the good fight, while many others (here and overseas) pretend to fight only when donor and sponsor dollars are up for grabs.
BROVO Horge!! How true, how true! (About the donor and sponsor dollars.) It is a shame. Good money gone to waste.
What do an NGO do when they commit mistakes? Bury it! Forget it! Act as if nothing has happen and move on and repeat it again in another site! The tragedy is that they keep repeating it. The much abuse words of “reform, ecological balance, conservation, sustainability, and success is so deafening that one becomes numb. Disgusting isn’t it? They do not even look back to see the monsters they have created. They refused to see the sufferings of affected coastal dwellers that they have cause simply because they do not do their homework properly. They are just desperate for numbers to tell the world that they are succeeding. Hooray!!! CERTIFICATION WORKS!!! MORE DONATIONS, MORE MONEY!!! But does it really work now???>?? Honestly ask yourselves. You know the answer. You do not even have to open your eyes to see it.
And Horge, you know how simple folks outlooks are, though we cannot keep blaming them. During election candidates’ gives money, food, and T-shirts to have these poor people pledge their votes and come out in pictures to show support no matter how false and forced and dramatized. In politics it has become almost normal to try to whitewash things. Are we now politicizing our environmental goals too?
Give me time. I am gong to write about an island off Mindoro. Another highly coveted collecting place where the monster was dormant but now awaken.
Horge, I think one the submission of samples (food and ornamental) to the CDT lab was an enforcement thing that Dante Delabahan and Lawyer Lorenzo formerly of ELAC (Environmental Legal Assistant Center) and I did. An enforcement group encountered a boat from Marinduque, base in Pagbilao collecting among other species the highly coveted blue tangs and Leopardus groupers. The boat had no permit to operate in the Ancestral Domain waters but was carrying a permit of BFAR Region 4 to operate within the region on marine products. A very vague permit that if read by the uninformed will think that they are legally permitted to operate in any area. These collectors had no nets at all, not even scoop nets. They had just been fishing for a day and yet they had thousands of fishes in oxygenated plastic bags. I was requested to help inspect the boat for cyanide, question the collectors (very interesting revealing answers that made me start doubting MAC’s sincerity capability, and ability), choose the samples to be sent to the CDT laboratory, witness the packing of the samples to protect the integrity of the specimens being sent and help in the preparation of affidavits. I also had to pick the site where to release the confiscated fishes.
Here was what is interesting. I coordinated the sending of those samples to the BFAR CDT Lab in Manila and to be sure nothing goes wrong talked to the chemist. We needed and beg for the results to be able to file the case within 48 hours or the enforcement group could be charge for arbitrary detention if the collectors and boat captain were not released within the time legally allowed by law. The chemist promised to work overtime but being undermanned did not make the 48 hours deadline. The arrested persons had to be release and only the boat impounded. After more than 10 days and several phone calls I finally got the results by phone only. All samples were highly positive, water and all the fishes. The chemist at that time told me that a copy of the results would be sent by fax first to Coron. We never got it. Somehow somewhere communications got fouled up. Base on the phone call and the assurance that the fax and hard copy was coming the criminal case was filed although the collectors and the boat captain were already released so the boat can be confiscated in favor of the government. We waited for several weeks more for the certificate of the CDT. Nothing came. Then we got the shock of our lives. A certificated stating result to be negative was faxed (LISTEN TO THIS: FAXED NO HARD COPY) direct to the prosecutor hearing the case in Puerto Princessa. Based on this fax copy the prosecutor dismisses the case immediately. (Shows you how long the tentacles of this problem is) The Law allows a 15 days grace period to contest the verdict. The head of the lab that by the way is a very straight and honest lady was not present during the test of these samples and was at that time unavailable when I called trying to contact her. I burned the phone lines to the BFAR CDT lab again and to try to talk to the chemist that said that the test results were positive. She was unavailable. So I requested for whoever was on the phone to look into their logbook and see if any results were faxed and hard copies sent out. I also asked the person on the phone pointblank if the test results where positive or negative. The reply was “I do not know sir.” I knew then something was very funny.
The office of the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development in Puerto Princessa one of the complainants was able to obtain the faxed with negative results of the test from the court so we thought it better to seek audience with the BFAR Director. I went flew down to Manila and went to the MAC’s office talked to the Country Director and told him that he being a friend of the BFAR Director should arrange a meeting for us. I told him who was one of the suspected financiers of this incident and that even if these people have disappeared and what they say has become hearsay, gossips can still do a lot of damage and just shows how useless MAC really is. (I was irritated because to add insult to injury on this matter the sister boat was arrested again in another part of the island a few days after the case was dismiss. This time, they were caught with hard evidences but were released after some highly private questionable negotiations as related to me by the Lawyer of ELAC and Dante Delabajan another ELAC person. I suspected that enforcement groups have lost their faith on the system and would rather profit from it than letting the others profit from their efforts. Again in another incident later after this I was again called in because another of its sister boat was arrested in another part of the hundreds of islands there and a squeeze bottles found, again tested to be positive with cyanide. I have not heard anything about the case anymore.
Luckily before the meeting with the BFAR Director I was able to get hold of the chief of the CDT lab section and told her what happened. I also told her I could identify the chemist that told me the test was positive. In the meeting with the Director and the Chief of the Lab fax copy of the test results of the certificate stating the tests results were negative was presented. The copy obtained by the PCSD from the prosecutor that we all were now able to read surprised us. It was not the species sent by our group to be tested. The chief of the lab had to go back to the lab and check the records before the real test results came out. BFAR was a victim of switching BIG TIME and to top it all according to BFAR later it was some high-ranking military person who took the results from the lab and was the one who faxed it to the prosecutor.
The case was refilled but the tragedy is the boat captain is gone, so with the poor highly exploited guilty collectors, and the boat and its sister boats are still wrecking havoc in other places up to now.
Two pictures attached. (One boat inspection and the evidence being prepared with the boat captain present.)
Quoting Horge:
---All the BFAR regular staff I met make do with what they have, and fight the good fight, while many others (here and overseas) pretend to fight only when donor and sponsor dollars are up for grabs.
BROVO Horge!! How true, how true! (About the donor and sponsor dollars.) It is a shame. Good money gone to waste.
What do an NGO do when they commit mistakes? Bury it! Forget it! Act as if nothing has happen and move on and repeat it again in another site! The tragedy is that they keep repeating it. The much abuse words of “reform, ecological balance, conservation, sustainability, and success is so deafening that one becomes numb. Disgusting isn’t it? They do not even look back to see the monsters they have created. They refused to see the sufferings of affected coastal dwellers that they have cause simply because they do not do their homework properly. They are just desperate for numbers to tell the world that they are succeeding. Hooray!!! CERTIFICATION WORKS!!! MORE DONATIONS, MORE MONEY!!! But does it really work now???>?? Honestly ask yourselves. You know the answer. You do not even have to open your eyes to see it.
And Horge, you know how simple folks outlooks are, though we cannot keep blaming them. During election candidates’ gives money, food, and T-shirts to have these poor people pledge their votes and come out in pictures to show support no matter how false and forced and dramatized. In politics it has become almost normal to try to whitewash things. Are we now politicizing our environmental goals too?
Give me time. I am gong to write about an island off Mindoro. Another highly coveted collecting place where the monster was dormant but now awaken.
