The Philippines, net training, key players/ Relevant info.

[Jaime Baquero]

I must have done this before but I didn't. I know how sensitive is this matter. I was hopping that the issue I want to address to the readers had been clarified by the individuals concerned but it didn't happen. Also, I do agree with M. Kirda I must disclose names and ask questions directly. I hope we all have answers.

Since many readers have shown interest helping to support the divers net training campaigns launched through this forum I do consider that I have the moral responsibility and MUST disclose some important aspects that are relevant to the net training program discussed here in.

To begin a bit of background.

Last may 30 Sardonic asked

Who is Imperial?

May 30 Cortes Marine answered. " I import from Imperial. They are a net caught exporter. I am working with them on some fundamental fish quality problems and policy protocols. I spend thousands of dollars with them. If everything I do become public, Why would I want to invest in them and help them just to have anyone try and steal them away".

June 01 Nancy Swart wrote.

......so Steve, What yuo're saying........ your top priority is really training the people that will indirectly benefit Cortez Marine? Please see more on that thread . Who is Imperial?

July 11-03 Thread What MAC can do? Fishaholic asked . Who do you see being the catalyst for change in the hobby then?

July 11 Mary answered.

The key players I see emerging now are Ferdinand Cruz dedicated and passionated field trainer working on his own...

July 17 Sardonic asked

So the net training guy also wons an exporter business?

July 17 Mike Kirda said

Ferdinand Cruz helped his sister's export business back in the 1980's but that has long since closed"

July 17 Mike Kirda stated

"Ferdinand Cruz has told me another exporter, Imperial, who he has helped, introducing them to net caught collectors he has trained. This establishes Ferdie as a trainer with connections to exporters, not as a budding export business"

July 21 Sardonic wit asked.

How is he financing the training he is currently doing? Is he working for another outfit that is like MAC? ...if so.. or does Ferdinand somehow make income as a middleman between collectors and exporters?

M. Kirda answered

" Donny, I just spoke to Ferdinand......... He swears to me that he is not making money as a middleman... speculating out loud...."

As we can see there is a concern, from some readers, about the role that Ferdinand Cruz is playing in this reform movement.

In the responses posted by Mike Kirda I found some inconsistencies with what I found while in the Philippines as follows.

During 1995 -1998 and while in the Philippines I had an important task which was to know the best possible way all about the trade of marine ornamental fish in the Philippines. One of the first things I did was to visit almost all the exporters facilities in Manila. I had good response from exporters and visit a good number of them. One of the business was called Marine Enterprises it was operated by Perfecto Pascua, during the visit I also learnt that Ferdinand Cruz was linked to the operation.

Later on I found that F. Cruz was linked to one of the NGO's dealing with the net training program. I got direct information from colleagues of F. Cruz that F. Cruz was getting fish from the trained collectors to bring to Marine Enterprises. To me, this situation "smelled fishy" as I wrote down in my note book. It was clear that F. Cruz was taking personal advantage of the net training program. That is called conflict of interest.

I consider F. Cruz background is not clear. I have serious doubts given the developments in the lasts months, and the facts that I knew from previous trips to the Philippines.

F. Cruz resigned from MAC only weeks before his contract expired. Now he is running around the Philippines getting in contact with all the collectors he helped to train while working with IMA and MAC. He has traveled to the US getting in contact with fish importers in the East. One thing for sure F. Cruz knows about the fish business, he knows there is money to be made.

Messages posted by M. Kirda and Mary are sign that they do not know about F. Cruz past activities. I do not blame them is not their fault.

I found strange that Ferdinand Cruz didn't mention to M. Kirda anything about the business operation Marine Enterprises. Why? Why he didn't mention it to Mary?

What is F. Cruz real relation with Imperial?

These and other matters must be clarified and pronto.

I apologize for not disclosing these concerns before.

Sincerely

Jaime

[/u]

 

[naesco]

Who is the stateside buyer of the fish caught with the nets donated by reefers on this board and RC?

 

[clarionreef]

Marine enterprises? Who are they?
Did Ferdie deal with them back when he was working with the IMA...Who knows? Ask the IMA since it was their employee at the time. They sure aren't doing anything much these days but that was quite a number of years ago. Very old news.
Imperial? I don't get fish from them anymore. That was some time ago and yesterdays news. We do business every single week. Some dealers are worth developing and some aren't. This you find out with experience.
What else ya got?
Don't apologize for releasing little news bits and gossip from days gone by. Many things have happened since and continue to.
Now, if we can only find trainers of no commercial experience that have never had to make a living in the fish business. Where do we find such experience-free people of competence?
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Jamie,

Why are you asking these questions to this board? Ferdie has only posted a few times, and really doesn't participate in this forum. He usually is in the field. Imperial has never even glanced at this board, soagain why are you asking these questions here? Email the concerned parties.

AS for being in the US, looking for buyers in the East, your wrong. The person in question, hired Ferdie to train divers for him, as Ferdie has done in the past.

What is your purpose Jamie? Why don't you start another OVI attempt at training? Don't let your past failures get in the way. More trained, is more trained. I know, wholelistic, you can do that approach.

Your a funny guy, saying Steve's only training for himself. We really don't make a dime on PI, its usually a break even for us. We make our money on what we're named after, Sea of Cortez. Yes the divers there were trained by Steve, but they've also had 2 generations come to light, and get trained by their elders. They've been supplied with netting since 1978. Nearly the same thing in PI, several genereations have come to train their own, after the initail trainings. One of our PI export companies is a family run business, Steve trained the elder in the 80's, now he's got kids he's trained helping collect for the business. We have no sole action with ANY exporter other then our station in Mexico. All our PI exporters deal with many many people in several countries. They'd all go out of business if we had such a deal, as we don't bring in enough to make even 1 export business over there. More trained, well since we can't use more PI fish, they'll go some place, huh?

Jamie, who do you think should be training? Personally, I belive the more divers trained, the more will use nets instead of cyanide.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm confused. We are suppossed to be shocked that there is a guy running around the Phillipines, trying to make money on the same Industry that everyone else here makes money on? What's the big deal? The guys got to eat right? The entire point is that there is more money to be made by doing it the right way, so I'm all for encouraging people over there to make as much money as possible. More power to him.

 

[MaryHM]

I could frankly care less about what Ferdinand did in the 80's or 90's. He is training collectors to use nets. He is training them properly. No one is arguing that fact. That is the only thing I care about. Jaime, if you want to try to turn this into some vast conspiracy then I must wonder about your own agenda.

 

[mkirda]

As we can see there is a concern, from some readers, about the role that Ferdinand Cruz is playing in this reform movement.

Ferdinand is also a victim of quite the vicious whisper campaign.
Hint after hint of impropriety, all done with no evidence to back any of it up.

Sorta like your post, actually...

In the responses posted by Mike Kirda I found some inconsistencies with what I found while in the Philippines as follows.

During 1995 -1998 and while in the Philippines I had an important task which was to know the best possible way all about the trade of marine ornamental fish in the Philippines.

Jaime, this sentence makes absolutely no sense to me...
All the words are fine... They just don't make any sense when strung together in this way. Can you please re-word the sentence in a some way as to make it comprehensible?

One of the first things I did was to visit almost all the exporters facilities in Manila. I had good response from exporters and visit a good number of them. One of the business was called Marine Enterprises it was operated by Perfecto Pascua, during the visit I also learnt that Ferdinand Cruz was linked to the operation.

Later on I found that F. Cruz was linked to one of the NGO's dealing with the net training program. I got direct information from colleagues of F. Cruz that F. Cruz was getting fish from the trained collectors to bring to Marine Enterprises. To me, this situation "smelled fishy" as I wrote down in my note book. It was clear that F. Cruz was taking personal advantage of the net training program. That is called conflict of interest.

Ok, so six to eight years ago, Ferdie was also introducing net collectors to exporters? Is this the big secret?
Or are you trying to insinuate something more?
If so, what exactly? This is far too vague, Jaime.

I consider F. Cruz background is not clear. I have serious doubts given the developments in the lasts months, and the facts that I knew from previous trips to the Philippines.

Ok. I feel like I did when I watched The Empire Strikes Back now...
Are you just going to leave the reader hanging???
Hint, then hang... Hint, then hang...

F. Cruz resigned from MAC only weeks before his contract expired. Now he is running around the Philippines getting in contact with all the collectors he helped to train while working with IMA and MAC. He has traveled to the US getting in contact with fish importers in the East. One thing for sure F. Cruz knows about the fish business, he knows there is money to be made.

Really? How come every time he has travelled here, I have been able to reach him at his relative's homes? He travels here to visit his family, and suddenly it is a vast fish conspiracy? Gimme a break, Jaime... You identify with Mulder a little too much.

Messages posted by M. Kirda and Mary are sign that they do not know about F. Cruz past activities. I do not blame them is not their fault.

I found strange that Ferdinand Cruz didn't mention to M. Kirda anything about the business operation Marine Enterprises. Why? Why he didn't mention it to Mary?

What is F. Cruz real relation with Imperial?

These and other matters must be clarified and pronto.

I apologize for not disclosing these concerns before.

Even more importantly, I really don't give a rat's rear end what Ferdie was doing six or eight years ago unless it was running drugs or molesting little children. If he happened to be a middleman for a time, then 'saw the light' and started net trainings, so be it.

I don't find it strange that Ferdinand didn't mention his former employer to me. Ferdinand probably doesn't know I once worked for US Robotics either... Are you going to accuse me of hiding this information from him, and hint of conspiracy now? Conspiracy of... something?

So far, all I see here is yet more unsubstantiated innuendo. Can't you offer more than that, Jaime? I thought that, as a marine biologist, you had some idea of what was going on over there. :wink:

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[naesco]

Question answered.

 

[mkirda]

Who is the stateside buyer of the fish caught with the nets donated by reefers on this board and RC?

Ok, now I understand...

Wayne,
In my last conversation with Ferdie, before he left for the field, I asked about the rolls of netting.

At that point in time, they had not been unrolled nor cut. None of it had been distributed yet. He still had netting sent over previously that he was using up before the rolls would be cut.

So whatever answer you may have gotten, the true answer is "No one".

I did do some digging into previous netting sent over as well. When Steve headed over earlier this year, AMDA sent over several hundred feet of netting as well. John Brandt tells me that he did not personally see it, but after talking with MAC's field personnel, he was able to find out that that netting was distributed to the MAC certified collectors in Bohol.

So of the three sources of netting material in the past year, those importing fish from MAC certified dealers, and probably Imperial Marine, did likely get fish that were caught with either AMDA's donated netting or my own.

I trust this answers your question.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[naesco]

Who is the stateside buyer of the fish caught with the nets donated by reefers on this board and RC?

Ok, now I understand...

Wayne,
In my last conversation with Ferdie, before he left for the field, I asked about the rolls of netting.

At that point in time, they had not been unrolled nor cut. None of it had been distributed yet. He still had netting sent over previously that he was using up before the rolls would be cut.

So whatever answer you may have gotten, the true answer is "No one".

I did do some digging into previous netting sent over as well. When Steve headed over earlier this year, AMDA sent over several hundred feet of netting as well. John Brandt tells me that he did not personally see it, but after talking with MAC's field personnel, he was able to find out that that netting was distributed to the MAC certified collectors in Bohol.

So of the three sources of netting material in the past year, those importing fish from MAC certified dealers, and probably Imperial Marine, did likely get fish that were caught with either AMDA's donated netting or my own.

I trust this answers your question.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

Thanks, Mike as I understand the first netting material has been in the hands of the fishers of San Salvador in Zambales since on or about August 1/03. Is it true that these fish were sold by them to Imperial?

 

[naesco]

Sorry

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry

About what?

 

[Anonymous]

Innuendo aside, I think many of the questions here are fair ones. It just shows that people really want cradle-to-grave accountability regarding how donated money/materials are spent/used. Right now there isn't a procedure in place to track donations once they get to the P.I. is there?

-Lee

 

[naesco]

Sorry

About what?

I double posted, rookie, eh!

 

[naesco]

Innuendo aside, I think many of the questions here are fair ones. It just shows that people really want cradle-to-grave accountability regarding how donated money/materials are spent/used. Right now there isn't a procedure in place to track donations once they get to the P.I. is there?

-Lee

There is no innuendo. Just questions that await answers.

 

[mkirda]

Thanks, Mike as I understand the first netting material has been in the hands of the fishers of San Salvador in Zambales since on or about August 1/03. Is it true that these fish were sold by them to Imperial?[\quote]

Why would Imperial sell fish to the fish collectors of San Salvador?

You are not making sense, Wayne.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[naesco]

Thanks, Mike as I understand the first netting material has been in the hands of the fishers of San Salvador in Zambales since on or about August 1/03. Is it true that these fish were sold by them to Imperial?[\quote]

Why would Imperial sell fish to the fish collectors of San Salvador?

You are not making sense, Wayne.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

Mike
Reefers donated money for netting.
The first netting material was delivered to the fishers on Zambales on or about August 1/03
Did Imperial purchase the fish caught by these fishers with the nets?
Thank you

 

[clarionreef]

Now its accountability for the netting?
Why thats wonderful news. A thing that no one knew was an issue until lately despite defining it as such and hammering away for a year or two is now coveted enough to track and demand accountability on.
Seems to me that netting material is now something;
A] Worthwhile and
B] Apparently lacking for some time to cause such a hubbub now.
[ how could it have been lacking with so many serious salaries and organizational infrastructures build around the issue for a decade you ask?
How could the number one implement in the arsenal of any reformed collector go unnoticed despite thousands trained claims?
Relax...I won't elaborate. Any logical mind can see that there is no scuba training without scuba gear, no driver training without a car and no Mr. Goodwrench mechanics training without tools. Only in the "aquarium trade reform industry' do we find attempts to train people, year after year without the essential and fundamental tools to do it.
I have to go sell fish today. I don't think I'll order any or get plastic bags to pack them in. I'll just fling myself headlong into a sales campaign and see how it goes.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Now its accountability for the netting?

Yup. Especially if commercial entities collect public money for philanthropic ventures that could be directly related to their commercial ventures.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

Accountability, Amen.

 

[clarionreef]

Wayne,
AMDA sent over three batches of netting IN JANUARY AND FERRUARY OF THIS YEAR. 2 on DHL and one hand carried by me in February. I sent over some to my supplier around Christmas time as well.
In February, I met with Roger Hernandez, Chairman of the Net Collectors union of Palauig, Zambales and gave him netting that he took personally back to his divers.
More went to provide MAC with netting at the graduation ceromony AFTER their training and still more of it was distributed as the two exporters that got it saw fit.
Mike Kirda also sent over netting and so did MSI-Reef central with that huge load that just landed a few weeks ago. I hope that so much netting continues to flow to the Philippines that no one can keep track of it. It is essential collecting gear like masks, fins and snokles. Everyone needs it and they need it frequently.
Any responsible importer can assist their exporters in the provision of netting materials...any time they want to. So far...except for MSI and Cortez Marine, no one seems to want to do it.
Steve Robinson
AMDA