Tubbataha, paradise in pain

exploding colors

TUBBATAHA, the Philippines’ only national marine park, is home to about 600 species of fish and some 359 species of corals, or half the world’s coral species.

No thanks to a grounded US vessel, Tubbataha is now in terrible pain.

Efforts to extricate the minesweeper USS Guardian might not be completed until March 23, or in the next five weeks yet.

Last Jan. 17, the USS Guardian ran aground off Tubbataha Reef, damaging an estimated 4,000 square meters of the heritage site. That is more than a third of what until now seemed like a paradise called Tubbataha.

In July 2010, PCIJ Multimedia Director Ed Lingao and then PCIJ Multimedia Deputy Director Justine Espina-Letargo visited with the park rangers who are guarding 10,000 hectares of the Tubbataha coral reefs.

Thousands of years ago, these were really volcanic islands fringed by reefs. Over time, the islands sank and left only the reef formations that continued to grow upward, toward the sunlight.

Tubbataha is 130 kilometers from Cagayancillo in the north, and 150 kilometers from the provincial capital, Puerto Princesa, in the northwest.

The Reefs lie at the heart of the so-called Coral Triangle, a 647.5 million-hectare area spanning from the Philippines in the north to Australia in the south, and Fiji in east, which is said to have the highest diversity of corals, fish, crustaceans, and plant species in the world.

meeting a resident

A 2007 study by the University of the Philippines in the Visayas determined that the Tubbataha Reefs are “a major source of coral and fish larvae, seeding the greater Sulu sea.”

In layman’s terms, it simply means that Tubbataha, Samal dialect for “long reef exposed at low tide,” is a giant fish factory that populates the rest of the seas around the Philippines and much of the region.

For those who love figures, it is home to about 600 species of fish and some 359 species of corals, or half the world’s coral species.

Read the PCIJ report, “Predators now protectors of Tubbataha marine park,” here.

tubba rangers

PNoy gov’t pushes Cyberlaw, asks SC to lift TRO, junk pleas

BAD TIMING for a bad law?

As the world marked International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, the government of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III asked the Supreme Court to lift the temporary restraining order (TRO) it issued in October against Republic Act No. 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

The government insisted that the law does not regulate or punish free speech, contrary to the claims of Netizens and media groups that have filed 15 various petitions against the law.

The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) has submitted a 148-page comment to the Supreme Court asking the high tribunal to junk the petitions.

Media and civil society organizations had succeeded in getting a TRO against the Cybercrime law last October, citing that the law curtailed free speech and increased the penalties and jail terms for the crime of libel.

In addition, lawyers’ groups have expressed concerns that the law will allow government greater latitude in gathering data on internet use.

In a report published by GMANewsTV, the online news portal of television network GMA, the OSG is asking the Supreme Court to allow the law to be implemented immediately.

The OSG has argued, however, that the petitioners have not presented any evidence to support their opposition to the law; instead, the OSG said the oppositors to the law have only made legal arguments against the measure.

The OSG also said that libel has already been defined as a criminal act by the Revised Penal Code, and as such is “unprotected speech” that cannot be shielded by the freedom of the press.

GMANewsTV said the OSG questioned the inclusion of President Aquino as a respondent in at least five of the 15 petitions, citing that the President enjoys immunity from suit during his tenure in office.