BOC to file charges vs black coral traders

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Customs (BOC) will file charges on Thursday against a Filipino-Chinese businesswoman and the alleged consignee of the estimated P35 million worth of endangered corals and other marine species about to be smuggled out of the country.

BOC-Enforcement Security Service (ESS) Director Nestorio Gualberto yesterday said that they are preparing charges against the consignee, Exequiel Navarro, and the suspected financier-businesswoman whose name was withheld.

Aside from the two suspects, there might be two members of the syndicate who arranged the transport of the cargo and another who handled the “harvesting” of the marine species.

Gualberto said that they might file at the Department of Justice (DOJ) charges of violation of Republic Act 8550 or the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 against Navarro and the other suspects.

Navarro had not been placed under the bureau’s custody.

Gualberto said they could not detain Navarro “because we might be violating his constitutional rights.”

Sen. Miguel Zubiri, who chairs the Senate committee on environment and natural resources, is set to request the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to place Navarro on its hold departure order (HDO) to prevent him from leaving the country.

Zubiri went to the BOC-Port of Manila yesterday morning to personally see to the condition of the seized black corals, seashells and sea turtles. The information would be helpful during the Senate hearing, he said.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms this environmental crime and serious threat to our marine biodiversity perpetrated by some greedy and unscrupulous members of our society,” said Zubiri.

In a privilege speech titled “The Rape of Our Ocean,” Zubiri described as a “direct affront to all our efforts in protecting and conserving our environment, particularly our diverse marine ecosystems.”

“The perpetrators of this high crime on our seas had pushed back the decades-long efforts of the government, environmentalists, LGUs and NGOs in protecting and conserving our marine ecosystems,” Zubiri added.

“We could not let this high crime pass without our scrutiny,” he said, convening the environment committee to probe the incident. “We will expose all the people behind this crime, particularly the financier and the masterminds of this syndicate,” he said.

Zubiri said that it also “pains (him) to see that this is happening just as we celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity.”

He expressed concern over the Bureau of Customs’ seizure of two 20-foot container vans declared as rubber at the Eva Macapagal Domestic Terminal in Pier 15, South Harbor Manila from the Port of Cotobato last May 2.

The cargo was consigned to Navarro and it yielded 134 bundles with 21,169 pieces of dried black corals (Sea Fans), 161 stuffed hawksbill and green turtles, 15 bundles or 196 kilograms of sea whips, and 209 bundles or 7,340 pieces of rare sea shells.

Zubiri gave the speech as he also received a report that another shipment of black corals was intercepted and confiscated in Cebu.

The contraband, which came from Manila onboard the MV Lorcon Manila, yielded 168 sacks containing 375 pieces of black sea fan corals and estimated to be worth P15 million.

Zubiri commended the Enforcement and Security Service of the Customs Police Division.

The BOC said the suspects intended to smuggle the endangered marine species to China and Europe.

Navarro told BOC investigators that the businesswoman allegedly used him. The businesswoman is reportedly engaged in exporting marine products to Taiwan.

During his privilege speech at the Senate, Zubiri also said statistics of the World Wildlife Fund estimated in 1994 that the economic cost over a 25-year period of destroying a kilometer of coral reef is between $137,000 and $1,200,000 or between P6.165 million and P54 million.

Zubiri said international expert on corals Gary Williams of the California Academy of Sciences told Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau officials that the area damaged or destroyed could reach 190.8 square kilometers or about five times the size of the city of Manila with an area of 38.5 square kilometers. – With Christina Mendez