COLUMN ONE : Death and Disaster on the Reef : In the Philippines, a fishing technique takes a double toll. Delicate marine areas suffer and young divers risk their lives for skimpy rewards.

Only 13 years old, Carlos Gallano already had seen friends drown--or rupture their eardrums deep underwater. Others were slashed by propellers or attacked by sharks.

His job was to swim all day, pounding a heavy rock on fragile coral reefs to drive fish into nets. At night, he’d fight for space with 300 others crammed on a filthy, fish-filled deck. His pay for 10 months at sea: $75.

“The hardship was too much,” he said. “We were like slaves.

“So I escaped. When we got to land, I hid in the cemetery. They tried to hunt me down. They said I would be beaten if I was caught.”

Gallano’s tale is the sad story of muro-ami. Originating in Japan, it is a uniquely dangerous and destructive form of Philippine reef fishing that critics say combines modern slavery with ecological disaster.

Reefs are crucial to marine life, and scientists say the 7,107 Philippine islands boast the richest reefs in the world. They are home to an estimated 2,000 species of fish and 500 of coral. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, by contrast, has 1,500 species of fish and 400 of coral.

But the Philippine reefs are also the most damaged. Together with muro-ami, fishermen using the poison sodium cyanide, homemade explosives and dynamite have helped to destroy an estimated 70% of the reefs, a University of the Philippines study found. Only 6% were still pristine.

“The importance to coastal people is extreme,” warned John McManus, a marine biologist at the university’s Marine Science Institute. “Our number one concern is feeding hungry coastal villagers. And coral reefs are a major source of food and income for them.”

Muro-ami is also a source of food and income. Operators say 5,000 teen-agers and young men currently work off 28 muro-ami boats. Each year they harvest more than 10,000 metric tons of fish from shallow waters in the Sulu and South China seas.

Each ship sends scores of swimmers into the sea. Advancing along the reef, the swimmers jerk long “scare-lines” tied to chains or rocks across the coral. Others, wearing only goggles, hold their breath and dive as much as 100 feet deep to anchor the nets. As the cordon of swimmers close in, the free-divers go back down to free the net and haul the catch.

The results, investigators say, are huge profits, mile after mile of shattered coral and dozens of injuries and deaths.

“Just imagine 200 or 300 people pounding a coral reef to drive the fish,” said Rogelio Gonzales, a local fisherman and village official. “It destroys everything.”

And the risks include deafness, nitrogen narcosis and shark attacks--24 have been recorded. Some lose fingers or toes, smashed between the mother ship and the outriggers. Others suffer typhoid fever or dysentery from the ship’s cramped squalor, where sanitation is minimal.

But the divers face the most danger.

“No scuba diver in his right mind will go anywhere near a net,” said McManus, who has studied muro-ami. “And these kids have to swim under the net, 90 to 110 feet underwater, holding their breath. If anything happens, they’re dead.”

Many apparently are buried on a wind-swept beach here. Most graves are marked by broken coral and simple driftwood crosses, faded in the tropical sun. Typhoons have washed some graves away, or left some of the crosses tilting crazily under tangled coconut palms.

“All the pescadores (fishermen) are buried here,” said Marietta Baltazar, councilwoman for the only village, Panlaitan. “They do not allow burial at sea. They are religious people.”

The village of 5,000 nestles against a long beach below steep green hills. Muro-ami crews are easy to spot, since the sun and sea have bleached their black hair red. And they have turned the sleepy island 180 miles southwest of Manila, in the Calamian group of islands, into a mini-boomtown, with bustling shops, cockfights and bars.

“Our island is a commercial center now because of muro-ami, “ boasted Cirilo G. Caco, the barrio captain. “Without it, people here would starve.”

That is the dilemma for the government. In 1986, the Department of Agriculture tried to ban muro-ami. But officials approved delays while alternative employment schemes were studied. Muro-ami operators, in turn, agreed to use less destructive equipment and stop hiring minors.

But in May, investigators found at least 10 young boys working aboard the Dona Aurea-B, a muro-ami ship with 293 fishermen and crew working a reef near here. Government divers found that the swimmers had damaged soft underwater polyps using illegal scare-lines with rocks.

“It was as terrible as before,” said Malcolm Sarmiento Jr., general manager of the Philippine Fisheries Development Authority, who led the raid. “It was like a bulldozer underwater.”

A Senate committee has held hearings on a permanent ban, but opposition is strong. One reason is that the head of the House fisheries subcommittee, Rep. Crisologo Abines, comes from a family that jointly runs the multimillion-dollar muro-ami monopoly.

The Abines company, the ABS Fish Trading Corp., arranges for the fishermen and divers and provides them nets and boats. The mother ships come from Frabal Fishing Corp., owned by Manila businessman Francisco Dee.

Records show that ABS and Frabal receive 80% of the profits, while the fishermen and divers split the rest after nets, food and operating expenses are deducted. Since their families borrow money and shop in company-owned stores, many fishermen return in debt after 10 months at sea.

“It’s the reason these are called the slave ships of the Philippines,” McManus said.

Most fishermen come from three rural villages in southern Cebu, a large island about 250 miles to the southeast. It is Rep. Abines’ district, and his family runs local politics, as well as a bank, stores and buses. More than half the population depends on muro-ami, and roadside welcome signs say, “We love Muro-ami!”

Not everyone does. Cebu’s governor, Emilio Osmena, blames muro-ami for perpetuating “the most impoverished, illiterate and disadvantaged district” in the region.

“They buy children from families,” Osmena charged. “The reason they prefer children is they eat less, take up less room and cause less trouble.”

“It’s child labor, if not slavery,” he added. “Hundreds already have died.”

In one of the Cebu villages, Raymundo Erauda, head teacher in the small Alo Elementary School, agreed. “There are no benefits to muro-ami, “ he said, shaking his head. “One of my nephews died. He drowned. He was only 12 years old.”

Apolonio Abines Jr., chairman of the family company, heatedly denied the charges of deaths and slavery. Few, if any, have died, he said. Coral is not damaged by current muro-ami operations, he insisted, and all fishermen must be over 18 years old.

“Since we imposed the 18-year-old limit, the boys and parents are crying,” he added. “They don’t have any livelihood.”

His brother, Emiliano Abines, mayor of Oslob, the largest of three villages where the muro-ami recruiting is done, also denied any undue injuries from fishing method. “No fisherman became deaf from diving,” he said. “The deafness comes from an inborn sickness in Oslob, not from diving.”

And his sister, Encarnacion Go, mayor of nearby Santander, blamed politics for the criticism. The fishermen enjoy their work, she said. “You can give them diving equipment,” she added. “They don’t want to use it.”

But former fisherman Oscar Laurenciala painted a very different picture. Now 28, he says he barely knew how to swim when he was hired for a muro-ami boat in the South China Sea in 1981.

“A lot of us did not know how to swim,” he said in Busuanga, near Talampulan. “There were many of us who almost drowned.”

The 300 swimmers and divers usually worked from sunrise to sunset. They worked reefs up to eight times a day, jiggling long lines hung with rocks and plastic streamers to scare fish into huge nets.

When he complained that he couldn’t swim, “as punishment, we’d have to stand under the sun,” Laurenciala said. And when he lost a scare-line in the waves, “I was beaten by a paddle on the head.”

One friend was speared in the neck by a swordfish. And others had fingers and toes crushed by the moving boats. “A lot got hurt,” he said.

On board, they slept crowded between racks of drying fish, in fishing-net hammocks hung three deep. They ate corn grits and salted “trash fish,” cooked on the open deck. They drank unboiled water and washed in the sea.

Often sick, he was docked a full day’s wages if he missed even one drive across the reef. He was also charged for his food, medicine, plus his share of the nets, outriggers and fishing gear. After ten months work, he was paid about $100.

“I was misled,” he said. “I was told the money was big and the work was easy.”

Finally, he decided to quit and return to Cebu, a 40-hour boat ride away. “We were told we’d be sent home free of charge,” he said. “But we’ve been stranded here. How can I go home?”