Blog Action Day 2011 – please, let us save our seas!
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Truth be told, I felt so sad and embarrassed when news about the smuggling of black corals, turtles, rare seashells and other marine life here in the Philippines first broke out. Who wouldn't be? The shipment that was apprehended last May 1, 2011 at Pier 15, South Harbor Manila was from the Port of Cotabato City, Mindanao.
The apprehended shipment included two 20-footer container vans declared as "rubber." Obviously, the seized shipment was far from containing "rubber." Instead, the vans yielded, among others, 134 bundles with 21,169 pieces of dried black corals, 161 turtles and roughly 7,340 pieces of rare sea shells. And to think that was just ONE shipment!
That signaled a lot of concerns --- from the fact that my beloved Mindanao has apparently been the home of greedy individu...