Exploiters Imperil Resources : Vanished Islands Signal a Dilemma for Philippines

On a routine patrol one day last month, the skipper of a Philippine coast guard vessel noticed that something extraordinary had happened just north of this bustling port city in the southern Philippines.

Three islands off the northwest coast of Bohol Island had disappeared. The Philippine archipelago, formerly made up of 7,107 islands, now had just 7,104.

Coast Guard Lt. Nanieto Arillano didn’t believe it and sent a second patrol to check. Sure enough, Kanglangi, Tambulian and Magcalingao--three uninhabited yet resource-rich islands important to ship navigation in the area--had simply vanished.

Only recently has Arillano solved what he calls “the mysterious case of the missing islands.” And there was really nothing so mysterious about it, the lieutenant says: All three islands were stolen.

Bit by bit, piece by piece, during the 25 years since the islands were mapped and charted, cement and gravel dealers from Bohol and the nearby main island of Cebu had hauled away the islands’ fine white sand to their cement mills--doing the job so thoroughly that, in time, the three little islands simply disappeared from the horizon.

What remains of the islands’ sandy beaches and coral reefs now lies well beneath the sea’s surface, visible only to scuba divers and low-flying aircraft.

“The moral of the story of the missing islands is that we Filipinos do not appreciate what we have,” said Arillano, whose service, together with the Philippine navy, is charged with protecting the nation’s seas and marine resources.

“It is only when it disappears that we realize the value of something. I don’t think that these islands were all that important as sanctuaries of marine life. Their importance was primarily in their location for ship navigation and in their future resource potential--and now in their symbolism.”

The missing islands of Bohol are dramatic examples of how the Philippines, a nation facing an economic crisis of enormous proportions and living on a survival margin that has narrowed radically in the last decade, is actually destroying itself to survive.

In a nation where millions of lives depend on the bounty of the sea, the problem is especially acute along the 21,500 miles of coastline, where experts say that the future of the country’s centuries-old fishing tradition is now being threatened by exploitation, both by illegal sand miners and by the fishermen themselves.

Illegal Fishing Methods

Although the illegal mining of sand on uninhabited islands is a nationwide problem, it is, neither the most pervasive nor destructive phenomenon. The fishermen themselves are doing the most damage, navy and Coast Guard officials say, by using illegal methods to maximize their catches.

Like cement manufacturers who learned that they can increase profits by stealing sand, fishermen in record numbers are learning that dynamite and cyanide are more effective than bait, the officials say.

Philippine conservationists estimate that several hundred coral reefs already have been destroyed by small-scale fishermen who use waterproof dynamite charges and doses of cyanide to reap huge fish harvests.

The shock wave of a dynamite explosion stuns fish, which then float to the surface and are easily gathered. Diluted cyanide is dumped into the sea, in doses strong enough to slow down fully grown fish but not kill them. The cyanide, however, does kill young fish and eggs, destroying breeding grounds. Officials say that while fish caught here contain traces of cyanide, eating them causes no harm to human beings; they could cite no instances of cyanide poisoning in humans.

Confiscated Fish

To illustrate the extent of the problem, the government’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources staged a pilot enforcement project last year in which dozens of enforcement agents were concentrated in one province for three days. In those three days, nearly three tons of fish blasted by dynamite were confiscated from local fishermen.

“What the fisherman does not realize is that he is forcing his children to pay the price of his profits,” said Navy Capt. Francisco Tolin, who is stationed on the westernmost Philippine island of Palawan, where experts estimate that illegal fishing practices are most prevalent. “When you destroy a reef, it’s gone forever. The corals are the breeding grounds for fish. So, while a lot of fish may float up to the surface after the (dynamite) charge goes off, or after the cyanide has poisoned them, all of the eggs just die and sink to the bottom and there is no more breeding ground for the future.”

So great is the problem that the coast guard and navy have recently distributed posters nationwide as part of a public-awareness campaign.

Beneath a large skull and crossbones, the poster declares, “Cyanide fishing kills--and it destroys the coral reefs. Don’t deprive your children of their food in the future. Stop it.”

Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, the armed forces chief of staff, announced a nationwide crackdown on dynamite and cyanide fishing a year ago, directing all marine-based units to intensify their patrols and arrests, not only of fishermen but of illegal sand miners.

But experts say that the problem has only grown worse.

A Nationwide Problem

“It’s still a very big problem, not only on an island like Bohol but nationwide,” Arillano said. “But I also think we are still minimizing it. I have only a very few men. We have only one boat, a native outrigger, for the entire island of Bohol and the smaller islands that make up the province, and we have to cover 40 coastal towns along hundreds of miles of coastline.

“And there is another problem that has gone unresolved. When it comes to the dynamite for the fishermen, I’m afraid to say some of the (explosives) traffickers are members of active-duty military service.”

The charge is not a new one. After members of a crime syndicate trying to sell nearly 100 tons of dynamited fish in the Manila port district of Malabonan were arrested in June, 1986, the head of the Philippine Fisheries Development Authority charged that the syndicate was protected by “certain military agents” who received as much as $100,000 each in annual kickbacks. Syndicates also have been implicated in sales of cyanide, though it is far easier to obtain than dynamite and is manufactured locally.

Ramos immediately ordered an investigation into the charge of military involvement, but, more than a year later, his office has not announced any results.

Meanwhile, Arillano said, there is every indication that military involvement in illegal fishing and island mining has increased.

Intercepted Soldiers

Arillano said that three weeks ago shooting almost broke out on a small island off Bohol, when several coast guard officers intercepted a group of armed soldiers illegally selling dynamite to local fishermen.

“We tried to stop them, but it was impossible,” said the lieutenant. “These military men were armed with grenade launchers, mounted M-60 machine guns and dozens of M-16 assault rifles. My men had one World War II-vintage machine gun and they were in our one banca boat”--the motorized outrigger. “My men just quietly retreated.”

Another major obstacle to stopping the destruction of the thousands of reefs and uninhabited islands and their marine resources in the nation’s 438,000 square miles of territorial waters is the absence of any strong legal deterrent, navy and coast guard officers said.

Under present law, authorities must catch the fishermen in possession of the dynamite or cyanide, which can usually be thrown overboard as law enforcement agents approach. The penalty for someone caught with dynamite or cyanide is 20 years in prison. In the absence of such evidence, judges are forced to give offenders probation sentences, even if they are caught with hundreds of tons of dynamited or poisoned fish.

May Tighten Laws

There are indications that the country’s new Congress plans to tighten environmental laws banning such exploitation. Several senators and congressmen have said they plan to introduce legislation to satisfy calls from President Corazon Aquino’s administration for better protection of natural resources.

But in Bohol, there are indications that the government bureaucracy itself “may actually have to share in the blame,” Arillano said.

After he had confirmed that the islands were, indeed, missing, Arillano said he demanded a report on sand-mining activities on the three missing islands from the government’s Bureau of Mines, which oversees such activity. It took nearly two months for a special investigating team from the bureau’s Manila headquarters to submit its report, which officially concluded that all the mining responsible for the islands’ disappearance had been done without official permits.

At the same time, though, Arillano said, the bureau’s regional office in charge of Bohol responded to a similar request with a somewhat different conclusion.

Without confirming or denying that it had officially permitted local cement dealers to mine the islands, the bureau sent back a simple, one-line message, saying: “All permits to mine on the three missing islands have now been canceled.”