Tong-pats embolden Chinese poachers

Foreign marine poachers are getting bolder. On April 7 seven Chinese were caught hauling in and butchering endangered sea turtles just off the coast of El Nido, Palawan. As authorities approached, the thieves tried to escape on their speedboat powered by three 60-hp outboard motors. But assisting fishermen cut them off. Found onboard were 13 dead green sea turtles. A 14th was struggling to break free from a five-kilometer-long net. The locals had alerted the town environment office and Joint Task Force Malampaya upon spotting the unmarked vessel at 9:30 p.m. Municipal waters cover up to 15 km from shore, but the intruders were much closer, according to reports. They seemed unperturbed facing multimillion-peso fines and six-year jail terms. They know they’ll get off the hook in a jiffy.

Chinese and Vietnamese marine thieves treat El Nido as “poachers’ paradise.” They also encroach on Tubbataha Reefs in the Sulu Sea, well into Philippine territory, and waters off Palawan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. That’s because national officials let them. Local executives, aided by Coast Guard and Navy patrols, diligently enforce fisheries laws and jail the aliens. But on intercession of embassies, Malacañang invariably orders their release in the name of diplomatic ties. This naturally emboldens the rustlers and their Hong Kong financiers. Sometimes, local bay watches encounters returning poachers, in the same vessels that Manila authorities had freed.

Malacañang does nothing about locals nabbed for illegal blast, poison or seine fishing. But through Cabinet factotums it pressures local apprehenders and prosecutors to be lenient with aliens. Foreign envoys think it their right to impose on Filipino officials. Chinese state firms that bid for national government projects routinely bribe Palace and Cabinet officials, as in the Northrail and Southrail projects. In the aborted NBN deal, state-controlled ZTE Corp. signed up to supply RP with P130 million worth of telecoms equipment, but at an overprice of P330 million. No less than the First Couple was implicated in the scam. In demanding release of their poaching nationals, envoys are only collecting on their “goodwill”.

Last Aug. 29 authorities recovered 101 dead hawksbill turtles from Vietnamese vessel Q.ng 91234-TS, five nautical miles east of El Nido’s Cabaluan Isle. On July 6, 2008, four Vietnamese aboard Q.ng 95986 were arrested poaching off Guntao Isle, El Nido. Four other boats, believed to be Vietnamese, escaped. Apr. 13, 2008, 23 Vietnamese aboard the Quang Mei were nabbed in Balabac, southern Palawan. Retrieved from the craft were assorted fish and a sea turtle.

Since 2001 local authorities have arrested nearly a hundred Chinese poaching from a dozen vessels. All have been freed; some got their confiscated boats back.

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To queries about VIP security experts, which I wrote about Wednesday, the website of Progressive F.O.R.C.E. Concepts is: www.PFCTraining.com

Tony Newman, PFC Safeguards Asia Pacific director, can be reached at +632 8930883 (Makati) or +6345 4361554 (Clark Field Training Centre); +63917 8236803 or +63908 8823568 (mobiles), e-mail: [email protected]

Training programs are too numerous to list here. But among them are: defensive tactical firearms drills, including emergency situations; high threat protection, including rules of engagement, trauma care and evacuation, route reconnaissance, walking and vehicle formations, and escape and evasion; base protection, including legal use of force, protocol and etiquette, equipment and attire, threat detection and attack recognition, and protective surveillance, arrivals and departures, protective driving and route surveys.

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My friends at the Philippine branch of a multinational coffee-dairy maker must fix the stink about their sales manager and a distributor. The story is going around town. The food giant’s female sales boss not only is having an affair with their distributor’s married general manager, but also has caused the latter to abscond with company funds. The distributor’s owners are scandalized that the multinational has chosen to treat the affair as one of consenting adults, instead of a conflict of interest. That’s bad, since the multinational’s vaunted primary corporate policies are honesty, integrity and fairness.

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It’s been two years since the Supreme Court ordered payment to 230 farmers displaced by the government’s expansion of the Port of Batangas. But where’s the money, they’re asking the Philippine Ports Authority.

The Tribunal affirmed in Sept. 2007 a lower court ruling that P5,500 per square meter was just compensation for the farmers. The PPA had taken over their 130 hectares of beachfront industrial lots as far back as Sept. 2001. The Tribunal also imposed an annual interest of 12 percent on the PPA, and directed the lower court to enforce the final judgment.

No one has been able to collect so far, however.

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E-mail: [email protected]