THE DEATHS OF 44 OF US FILIPINOS, A SYMPTOM OF AN UNDERLYING CAUSE

FOR WHOSE DEFENSE IS OUR DEFENSE SYSTEM TODAY?

The death of 44 of our brother filipinos is a symptom of a nation unable to control the direction its defense system is taking. We want to arrest a criminal in our land yet it is being protected by the MILF which is being protected by a foreign nation the malaysians which is being protected by the british. The british conducted persuasion flights above our territory at the height of our dispute with the malaysians because of our efforts to recover our North Borneo from their occupation.  A trespassing which is in conflict with the U.S. claim that they will protect the Philippines. Why then are we filipinos unable to control the direction of our defense?

FOR WHOSE DEFENSE ARE THE FOUNDING FATHERS OF OUR NATION DIRECTING THEIR ACTIONS?

We say it is because it is being directed by Pres Aquino who was elected in an institution called election process. But Aquino is a Cojuangco, among the chinese who have conducted creeping invasion of our nation. They are the chinese against whom one of the founding fathers of our nation Jose Rizal was defending our nation.  Gen Ricarte prepared a position paper which stated that chinese should be banned from business and banking.

A document was shown Jose Rizal to which he drew attention to the fact that he was incorrectly described as a chinese mestizo, saying that he was an "indio puro." Rizal further declared: “I do not agree. This is unjust! Here it says that I am a half-breed, and it isn’t true! I am a pure Filipino!” In a letter to his mother, Jose Rizal wrote: “I had a lawsuit with the Chinese and I vowed not to buy any more from them, so that sometimes I find myself very hard up. Now we have almost neither dishes nor tumblers.” Edgar Wickberg, who wrote "The Chinese in Philippine Life 1850-1898" said that in 1895, while in exile in Dapitan in Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, Jose Rizal was filled with righteous indignation at the “exploitation” of the natives by the Chinese traders, and appealed to the local residents to boycott the Chinese shops. He also opened a small sari-sari store to compete against the Chinese. Nick Joaquin, the late Philippine cultural icon, even praised Rizal’s actions: “And because Chinese financiers had a stranglehold on native agriculture, Rizal set up the Cooperative Association of Dapitan Farmers, a pioneer in economic nationalism.

DEVIATION FROM NATIONALISM TO ALIENISM

They are the creeping invaders whose control of our nation we filipinos have tried to check in the early 1900s. But the U.S. established institutions like laws, Philippine Constabulary law enforcers, and political leaders who were already corrupted into providing legitimate conduits of U.S. interest policy implementors. So our efforts to check chinese invasion and controls where blocked.

As their penetration of our economic, political, defense, and education system deepened, their legitimacy of control of our institutions further strengthened. While as our hold of our economic, political, defense, and education system, weakened, our dependency towards the chinese and the U.S. further become an institution and a paradigm.

SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS TO THE ALIEN GODS

Today, while lives of us filipinos are mere offerings to please the nations the chinese president of the Philippines is serving, we filipinos fight each other to determine which among our actions and laws failed to implement with the least scandal and with finese, the policies and interests of these foreign legitimated and already institutionalized owners of our nation.  What we now have is a defense system for the interest of the chinese, malaysians, north americans of the US, and the british.

RECOVER OUR INHERITANCE

Only when we recover our inheritance of nationalism in the DNA of the fathers of our nation including that of Jose Rizal as well as Gen Antonio Luna, can we have genuine defense that is for the interest of us filipinos.

Huge Stash of Corals, Shells Found in Zambo Warehouses

By Julie S. Alipala
Inquirer Mindanao

6:31 pm | Saturday, June 4th, 2011

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Workers arrange rare black corals and endangered green sea turtles as they are presented to media in Manila on May 30. AP

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines—Two days of inspections of warehouses and buying stations of a Zamboanga-based trading company have yielded such a large stash of protected corals, shells and other marine species that two 20-foot container vans were not enough to hold them, the head of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources said here Saturday.

BFAR Director Asis Perez said the authorities discovered tons of corals and shells in one warehouse they inspected Saturday in the village of San Roque .

“We saw a still undetermined, huge volume (of corals and shells), much bigger than what were seized in Manila,” he told the Inquirer.

Asked to give an estimate, he said the shells and corals in that particular warehouse of the Li and Lim Trading would not fit in two 20-foot container vans. “I guess more than that and we need to evaluate how large this stash is,” Perez added.

He said a team of experts was expected in Zamboanga “to help us identify, determine and categorize the type of species found at one of the warehouses.”

“We have conducted a thorough search,” he said. “There’s indication of illegal items, we can see illegal items even if we don’t open the boxes, and in the second premises, shells are in boxes and sealed and there were several cuts of still undetermined items,” Perez said.

Rosella Contreras, head of the BFAR’s Fish Inspection and Quarantine Services in Western Mindanao, said among the items they saw inside one of the warehouses were porcelain clams or Hippopus porcellanus, a protected species harvesting of which is banned.

Ahadulla Sajili, BFAR Western Mindanao director, said the fact-finding team has inspected a total of three warehouses since Friday.

Sajili said they also inspected a warehouse operated by Uan Huat Trading, which he said is owned by Joe Pring, also known as Joe Ping, whom he identified as Taiwanese and the husband of Olivia Li and Lim Trading who has made herself scarce in the wake of the seizure in Manila late last months of two container vans filled with black corals and stuffed marine turtles.

In 2007, the authorities also seized protected marine species from Uan Uat’s warehouse and Pring was charged with violating the country’s fisheries laws. The case is still pending.

Chief Superintendent Elpidio de Asis, chief of the Western Mindanao police, said Pring personally welcomed the fact-finding team and allowed it to conduct the inspection of his warehouse.

Meanwhile, Lim found a defender in De Asis.

Citing the permit obtained by Li from the city’s business licensing office, De Asis said the businesswoman was operating a legitimate business.

“This does not look to me like smuggling. Some people were trying to make money and they did not know they were gathering banned marine products,” he said.

But BFAR’s Perez disagreed, saying that a highly organized syndicate could be behind the smuggling of protected corals and shells from this city.

“So many people were involved. People who are gathering and selling, consolidating… there are people making sure it’s transported and people who hide their real identities like the consignee of the one shipped and seized in Metro Manila,” he said.

Perez said, “There’s really a pattern. In other words it’s a pretty well thought of operation, it’s not something you do by impulse, well thought process, well planned, by all indications it’s a syndicated crime.”

Hadji Alano Alihuddin, provincial fisheries officer of Basilan also backed Perez’s statement.

He said village officials in his province could testify that those gathering corals there were escorted by heavily armed men.

But De Asis again rejected the idea of syndicated crime, saying the gathering and selling of corals have become a cottage industry for some fishermen in the Western Mindanao area.

In a related development, the Bureau of Customs said during a meeting with BFAR and other government officials here Friday that it could not possibly detect illegal items shipped out of the port here to other parts of the country.

The BOC said it inspects only cargoes bound for foreign destinations and not inter-island shipments, and pointed to the Philippine Ports Authority as the responsible agency. But PPA officials also washed their hands, saying it was the job of the BOC.

Officials of the Maritime Industry Authority said shipping companies should have also known they were transporting contraband. They said it was unlikely for shipping companies to just allow cargoes without knowing what they were.

Chinese-Filipino trader tagged in smuggling of black coral by Philip Tubeza, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Chinese-Filipino trader tagged in smuggling of black coral

By Philip C. Tubeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer

3:22 am | Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

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CARGO INSPECTION Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri shows photographers some of the rare black corals during an inspection of the seized illegal shipment at the Bureau of Customs in Manila. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines—A Chinese-Filipino businesswoman has been identified as the financier in the foiled attempt to smuggle P35 million worth of marine life that exposed the massive destruction of a black coral network off Cotabato province reportedly five times the size of Manila.

Exequiel Navarro, consignee of the illegal shipment, identified the woman and two accomplices, but their names were withheld pending investigation, Customs Police Director Nestorio Gualberto told reporters on Monday.

“The businesswoman is supposed to be the financier of the project. She exports marine products to Taiwan,” Gualberto said. “(Navarro) is claiming he was only used by the Chinese businesswoman.”

Navarro is under investigation after customs officials intercepted two large container vans containing cargo declared as rubber and consigned to him earlier this month. The shipment revealed more than 21,000 pieces of black corals, 161 dead turtles and other marine life.

Coral expert Gary Williams of the California Academy of Sciences estimated that the area damaged or destroyed due to the harvesting of the black corals could reach up to 190.8 square kilometers, or five times the size of Manila, which has a land area of 38.55 square km.

Gualberto said Navarro also implicated two men—one in charge of the harvesting, and the other the shipper.

Navarro to be judged

Gualberto said the Bureau of Customs would initially file charges only against Navarro in the Department of Justice on Thursday for violating the country’s Fisheries Code.

Gualberto added that the bureau also would seek Navarro’s inclusion in the Bureau of Immigration’s watch list to prevent him from leaving the country.

“We cannot make any arrest because the incident happened a long time ago. (Navarro) is freely roaming around, but he cannot leave the country,” he said.

Gualberto said Navarro also offered a sworn affidavit to the bureau, but the agency turned it down and suggested that he submit it instead to the justice department.

“These are his allegations, but it remains to be proven if that Chinese woman has something to do with his case,” he added.

Li n Lim Trading

Theresa Mundita Lim, chief of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, said on Monday that Navarro had disclosed in his affidavit that the contraband was consigned to the Zamboanga-based Li n Lim Trading.

She said Navarro had claimed he was not a part of the trading company and that he was only a representative of the transport company hired to ship the contraband.

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje told reporters that President Aquino had directed the prosecution of Navarro and the imposition of “stringent penalties” on him.

Paje said criminal charges against Navarro would be filed for violations of the Wildlife Act, which provides harsher penalties, instead of the Fisheries Code.

He also said the value of the damaged and confiscated species was lower than the actual costs.

“The value is understated so far,” Paje said. “The damage to our water resources runs up to hundreds of millions of pesos.”

It takes more than two decades for coral reefs to recover, he noted. Further, the destruction of the reefs will have a domino effect on other species that depend directly and indirectly on it.

Senate inquiry

Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, chair of the Senate committee on environment and natural resources, inspected the contraband at the port of Manila on Monday.

“We will conduct an investigation to put a stop to this rape of our seas and natural resources,” Zubiri told reporters. “I am a diver and it pains me to see these harvested corals and dead animals.”

In a privilege speech later in the Senate, Zubiri condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the destruction of coral reefs, describing it as “economic sabotage.”

“We cannot let this high crime pass without our scrutiny … We will expose all the people behind this crime, particularly the financier and masterminds of this syndicate,” he said.

Citing a World Wildlife Fund estimate in 1994, the senator said destroying a kilometer of coral reefs cost between P6.165 million and P54 million over 25 years.

“If we lose our corals and marine biodiversity, we will lose these marine grounds where the fish spawn, lay eggs and feed on. In short, we will lose our rich fishing grounds and deprive millions of Filipinos who rely on fishing for their livelihood, as well as pose a threat to our food security,” Zubiri said. With reports from Kristine L. Alave and Christian V. Esguerra

Bureau of Customs , Chinese-Filipino , corals , Crime , Environmental Issues , Fisheries code , Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, punishment , Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri , Senate , Smuggling , trader , Wildlife Act , World Wildlife Fund

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+6

MangDolphy· 6 hours ago

Di ba nyo nahahalata? Puro Intsik ang mandatus sa mga malalaking kaso na tulad nito? Shabu factory, smuggling, ngayon "rape of our seas and natural resources". Sa tingin ko kasi, sila ang pinakamalakas mag lagay at mag corrupt ng mga taong gobyerno, mula sa Punong Barangay hanggang sa congressman at senador.Bakit kaya para'ng ayaw kasuhan ni Gualberto ang Intsik na ito? Ni ayaw banggitin ang pangalan. Sa pal;agay ko di lang ito ang unang pagpuslit ng ganitong klaseng kontrabando. Di kaya matagal na'ng ginagawa ito? Mag ka lakas ng loob kaya ang Intsik na ito na mamuhunan ng milyones kung wala'ng protector mula sa barangay hanggang sa Customs man lang? Yon kaya'ng mga Intsik na financier ng malalaking shabu factory nakakulong na ba? Duda rin ako kasi ang dali naman "pumuslit" sa kulungan, di ba? Basta may pera lang.

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2 replies · active 1 hour ago

0

vicente p. aviles· 1 hour ago

Huwag na tayong mag "blame game". Tanggapin na natin na nasa atin ang problema. Kung hindi, paano natin malunasan ang problema kung palagi ibang tao ang may kasalanan. Tama na iyang "self denial".

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+4

jba· 5 hours ago

Ang masaklap nito ang mga kawawang mangingisda ang namamatay sa gutom. Hindi lang ang pagkasira ng corals ang problema. Sa Manila bay wala ng mahuli ang mga mangingisda dahil ang mga malalaking trawl na panghuli ng isda ay pinababayan ng gobyerno natin na maghuli sa mababaw na lugar sa manila bay.At dagda pa rito ang pag gamit ng mga dinamita at lason sa panghuhuli ng isda. Lahat ng corals at mga tirahan ng isda ay nasira n at wala ng mahuling mga isda ang mga maliliit na mangingisda sa bayabayin ng manila bay.
Matagal ng rekalmo ito sa mga coast guard at mga punong barangay sa bayabaying dagat subalit walang akyon ang gobyerno.. KAILAN pa kaya mababago ang BULOK na sistema ng ating gobyerno. PERA PERA LANG BA TALAGA ANG BUHAY SA MUNDO. Kawawa naman kaming mga maliliit na mangingisda.

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Jess· 1 hour ago

Bakit kais d i mapalitan yang mga pulitikong yan. Tama na ang isang term ang mga yan lalo na kung walang maipakitang kapakipakinabang na gawa tulad ng pagkahuli at maparusahan ang mga taong walang pagmamalasakit sa kalikaan at sa bayan at kapwa tao. Wala na bang iba dyan! naman naman naman.....

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0

WOW, TALAGA!?· 2 hours ago

(CHORUS) "we will conduct an investigation".. - (repeat this a million times... )

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+1

emil· 2 hours ago

MangDolpy, agree po ako sa inyo. Ciguradong may protectors ang financer mula barangay, Custom pataas. Otherwise hinde maglakas loob ang mga intsik na gawin ito.

Si Zubiri grandstanding lang yan. Wala namang nangyayari sa imbestigasyon. Sayang lang ang perang gagastusin dito. Pamigay mo na lang sa mahihirap.

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+2

pem· 2 hours ago

kaya nga 1 sa bawat 10 pinoy ay nasa labas ng bansa at kumakayod sa ibang lupain. wala ng pag-asa ang ating bansa. pag-aari na ito ng mga intsik. aba tanungin nyo nga ang mga sarili nyo kung sinu sino ang mga may ari ng malalaking negosyo sa pilipinas. at sino ba ang mga pilipinong nakalista sa forbes' richest billionaires? may ari ng sm malls (henry sy), lucio tan, may ari ng jolibee. at sino ba ang mga may ari ng mga negosyo sa mga bayan sa probinsya? kontrolado nila ang mga hardware, pag kain (bigay atbp), damit pati na communications. at ang masaklap, ang mga intsik sa mainland ay labas-masok sa bansa ng walang paalam. at ang mga intsik galing mainland kinakamkam na ang paracels, spratlys at pati na ang palawan! natatakot na talaga ako sa pilipinas. at ang mga intsik, puro pera at negosyo lang yata ang pinahahalagahan! marunong kaya sila magpahalaga sa ating kalikasan.