China’s perfected art of poaching

Chinese fishers have refined the modus operandi of stealing marine resources from Philippine waters. When they used to poach outright, they now distribute cyanide, water cages and fishmeal to islanders in the Sulu Sea. Desperate for cash, the latter then ravage the reefs and coop up the catch till the poaching ships return to collect the harvest.

Chinese shippers do it in collusion with Filipino charterers, as in last Dec.’s case of f/v Hoi Wan laden with over a thousand live fish. Most likely another Sino vessel — no name, only No. 2880 — intercepted in Oct. also had islanders killing and stuffing the 309 giant turtles found on board. Believing that local partners cloak poachers with legitimacy, their embassy not only yells louder against arrests but also demands recompense. The free world has been knocking China for denuding the seven seas. Over 3,500 Chinese ships — the largest fleet of all — trawl fishing grounds in all continents to feed a newly rich, seafood-savoring population. Chinese poaching is not a Philippine headache alone; Vietnam, Japan and Korea are also victims. Scientists who administer Antarctica complain of destructive fishing methods of Chinese encroachers.

Beijing leaders do not mind depleting marine life or, for that matter, climate change from too rapid industrialization. Europe warns that China is about to overtake America as the world’s top producer of greenhouse gases. The ruling Communist Party ignores them, as it anxiously clings to power via economic boom at the expense of global warming. The Economist quotes China’s deputy minister for environment Pan Yue as saying: "Most Chinese missions go abroad to talk about securing energy, whereas most foreign missions come to China to talk about our environmental impact. It’s a paradoxical diplomacy."

And yet China has done nothing. Instead it has shown the world that it cares not for future generations. To be sure, with just one saber rattling on the arrest of poachers, it is frittering away years of wise forging of ties with the Philippines.

In China’s wake, meanwhile, Vietnamese vessels intrude like remoras feasting on a shark’s food scraps. The aliens arrested off Palawan’s Balabac Isles last weekend were mimicking the old Chinese style of stealing out and out shark fin and endangered manta ray using dragnets. If dealt with feebly the way Filipino officials treat Sino thieves, Viet poachers will soon be handing out stun poison and cages too to coastal folk.



Everything the Comelec does, including a fire due to negligence, the Opposition shrilly calls a plot with the Administration to rig the election. The copying by three National Printing Office staff of classified serial numbers of election returns mechanically was blamed on Malacañang even if they could have been doing it innocently — or illicitly for someone else. Even the printing of extra returns, as required by law, was denounced as a prelude to vote padding. Tito Sotto, a defector from the Opposition, had to narrate that he too had once questioned such "overprinting", only to be told that his party lawyers had agreed to it as a precaution.

Obviously the Opposition doubts the Comelec because phobic with officer Virgilio Garcillano’s phone chats with candidate Gloria Arroyo in 2004. But then, if it distrusts the poll referee, why did the Opposition join the election game in the first place? Had it held fast to its fears instead of obsessed with embedding three political dynasties in the Senate, it could have boycotted. After all, still at the helms is the Comelec that had fouled up a P1.3-billion poll automation and a P1-billion voter ID system before it.

The Opposition cannot now hit the Comelec all out because it already is in the campaign. At best it can claim that its recurrent exposés of cheating in the making are only borne out of vigilance. Never mind the Administration’s counterclaim that the Opposition is conditioning voters to think that the former can win only by deceit.

Still, regularly beating the Comelec can begin to make the Opposition incredible — as in the boy who cried wolf. By the time a real fraud occurs, even on massive scale, voters might no longer believe its noisy spokesmen.

Besides, cheating is not a monopoly of the Administration. It can also be done by a coalition that controls the majority in a chamber of Congress. In the Senate, that happens to be the Opposition.



Transportation and Communication Sec. Leandro Mendoza clarifies that they have not studied an unsolicited proposal of Amsterdam Holdings Inc. because it is incomplete. While AHI may have a plan to interconnect all the government’s landline, cellular and Internet systems, it remains a plan until the firm states its financial rank and technical know-how. So DOTC will have fully-documented ZTE of China build the telecoms network.



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