Philippines nabs 11 Chinese poachers

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Tensions surge in disputed waters as PHL seizes Chinese boat
May 7, 2014

Philippine police seized a Chinese fishing boat in the disputed South China Sea on Wednesday, an official told Reuters, the latest flare-up of tensions in the oil and gas-rich waters that are claimed wholly or in part by six Asian nations.

Chief Superintendent Niel Vargas of the Philippine National Police Maritime Group said a maritime police patrol apprehended a Chinese fishing boat around 7 a.m. on Tuesday off Half Moon Shoal.

The boat has 11 crew and police found about 500 turtles in the vessel, some of which were already dead, he said, adding that a Philippine boat with crew was also seized, and found to have 40 turtles on board. Several species of sea turtles are protected under Philippine law.

Maritime police are now towing the boats to Puerto Princesa town on the island of Palawan where appropriate charges will be filed against them, Vargas said.

The incident is bound to raise the ire of Beijing, which claims almost the entire South China Sea, rejecting rival claims from Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. The Philippines refers to parts of South China Sea as West Philippine Sea.

China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it had asked the Philippines to hand back the seized boat and its crew.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in a news briefing the Philippines should stop taking provocative actions.

In Malacañang, Presidential Communications Operations Office head Herminio Coloma Jr. said the report still requires confirmation.

"If confirmed, the DFA will issue an appropriate statement," Coloma told reporters in a text message.

Chinese warning

On Tuesday, China warned Vietnam not to disturb activities of Chinese companies operating near disputed islands in another part of the South China Sea, after Hanoi condemned as illegal the movement of a giant Chinese oil rig into what it says is its territorial waters.

There are frequent tensions in the South China Sea between China and the other claimant nations, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines, both of which say Beijing has harassed their ships in the waters there.

The incidents come days after US President Barack Obama visited Asia to underline his commitment to allies there, including Japan and the Philippines, both locked in territorial disputes with China.

Obama, promoting a strategic "pivot" toward the Asia-Pacific region, also visited South Korea and Malaysia, but not China.

Half Moon Shoal is within the Philippines' 200-mile exclusive economic zone and near to Second Thomas Shoal, where a small Philippines garrison is based much to China's displeasure.

A second Philippine source, a senior naval officer, said there were two Chinese boats but the other one escaped.

China's official Xinhua news agency said contact had been lost with 11 fishermen after they were intercepted by "armed men" in waters not far from the Philippines.

They were on board the fishing boat Qiongqionghai 09063, which was intercepted by an unidentified armed vessel at about 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) in waters off Half Moon Shoal in the Spratly Islands, Xinhua said, citing a fishing association in Qionghai on China's southern island province of Hainan.

The shoal is some 100 km (60 miles) from Palawan.

"Several armed men forced themselves onto the boat and fired four or five shots in the air. They then took control of the boat," Xinhua said.

A second fishing boat escaped, but then encountered another armed boat, although it was able to get away, the report added.

The Qionghai government has sent other trawlers operating close by to help look for the fishermen, but has yet to find them, Xinhua said.

China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. — with Kimberly Jane Tan/Reuters/RSJ, GMA News

Source: www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/359943/news/nation/tensions-surge-in-disputed-waters-as-phl-seizes-chinese-boat

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PH arrests 11 Chinese fishermen off Palawan
A Philippine police official says the Chinese fishing boat is intercepted 60 nautical miles off the coast of Palawan, bearing 500 turtles

May 7, 2004
Carmela Fonbuena

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – The Philippine National Police (PNP) maritime group intercepted a Chinese fishing boat with 500 turtles on Tuesday, May 6, off the coast of Palawan, a PNP official confirmed to Rappler.

PNP spokesperson Senior Superintendent Theodore Sindac said that the Chinese boat, with a crew of 11, were found on Hasa-Hasa Shoal (Half Moon Shoal), which is just 60 nautical miles off the coast of Palawan.

"At about 7 am, May 6, 2014, at the Half Moon Shoal, Palawan, 2 vessels were captured. One is a local boat with 5 Muslim passengers carrying more or less 40 turtles. The other one is a Chinese boat with 11 passengers and carrying more or less 500 turtles," Sindac said in a text message.

The Chinese fishing boat Qiongqionghai 09063 was manned by a certain Chen Hi Quan and 10 Chinese crew.

The fishing boat is being towed to Palawan, where appropriate charges will be filed.

Sought for comment, the spokesperson of the Philippine military's Western Command (Wescom) based in Palawan said the PNP is the lead agency in the operation.

“As for Wescom, we have coordinated with the PNP to secure the safety of everyone involved,” sid Wescom spokesperson Lieutenant Cheryl Tindog told Rappler.

China state news media Xinhua earlier posted a report on the 11 "missing" fishermen.

"They (Chinese fishermen) were on board fishing boat Qiongqionghai 09063, which was intercepted by an unidentified armed vessel at about 10 am in waters off the Half Moon Shoal of Nansha Islands," Xinhua reported.

Xinhua said China has mobilized fishing boats to search for the missing fishermen.

China and the Philippines are engaged in a bitter maritime dispute over the West Philippines Sea (South China Sea).

Hasa-Hasa Shoal is frequented by Chinese fishermen. It is located at about 60 nautical miles off the coast of Palawan – well within the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

In 2012, a Chinese naval frigate was stranded in the same area. (READ: Chinese ship rescued in Half Moon Shoal) – Rappler.com

Source: www.rappler.com/nation/57456-missing-chinese-fishermen-half-moon-shoal

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Philippines nabs 11 Chinese poachers
Seizure of fishing boat angers China, demands explanation
Marlon Ramos, Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
May 8, 2014

MANILA, Philippines—Philippine maritime police seized a Chinese fishing vessel found carrying sea turtles off Hasa-Hasa Shoal (Half Moon Shoal) in disputed waters of the West Philippine Sea on Tuesday, in the latest escalation of the increasingly bitter territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing.

The seizure of the Chinese vessel angered China, which demanded the release of the boat and its crew. China claims the shoal is part of its territory.

But the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the arrest of the Chinese fishermen was an exercise of the Philippines’ sovereignty over its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea.

The Philippine National Police Maritime Group detained the 11-member crew of the 15-ton Chinese vessel after finding nearly 400 live sea turtles aboard the boat, Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, PNP spokesman, said on Wednesday.

Five Filipino fishermen were also arrested in the area after maritime police found 70 live sea turtles on their boat, Sindac said.

Chief Supt. Noel Lazarus Vargas, PNP Maritime Group director, said the maritime policemen were responding to a report about the presence of unidentified Filipino fishermen near Hasa-Hasa Shoal off Balabac town, Palawan province, on Tuesday morning when they chanced upon the Chinese vessel.

“We just responded to the report of the locals. It is still unclear how the foreign vessel was [intercepted],” Vargas said.

A second boat escaped

News wire agency Reuters reported a senior naval official as saying there were two Chinese boats but the other one escaped.

As of 6 Wednesday night, the boats of the Chinese and Filipino fishermen were still traveling toward Puerto Princesa City, the capital of Palawan where appropriate charges will be filed against them. Palawan is 100 km from the Hasa-Hasa Shoal.

Sindac said the Chinese vessel was marked “09063” and was skippered by Chen Hi Quan. Seized from the vessel were 120 live and 234 dead turtles, he said.

He identified the skipper of the small boat carrying the Filipino fishermen as Romantic Banto Amlain.

Vargas said officials of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would make an inventory of the seized turtles.

“The BFAR and DENR personnel will tag each of the evidence recovered from the boats, which will be used as evidence against the arrested fishermen,” Vargas said.

He said charges of violating the Philippine Wildlife Act would be brought against the Chinese and Filipino fishermen in the prosecutor’s office in Puerto Princesa.

‘Explain,’ China says

But China angrily responded that it had “undisputable sovereignty” over Ban Yue Reef, the Chinese name for Hasa-Hasa Shoal, and urged the Philippines to “stop taking further provocative action.”

“Relevant authorities from China have arrived at the scene,” Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing on Wednesday.

“We ask the Philippine side to give their explanation and deal with this case properly,” Hua said.

“We ask the Philippine side to release the vessel and crew, and we urge the Philippine side to stop taking further provocative action,” she said.

Responding in Manila, the DFA said the maritime police were enforcing Philippine wildlife laws when they seized the Chinese vessel in the West Philippine Sea, waters within the Philippines’ 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

“The seizing of the Chinese fishing boat, carrying large numbers of endangered species, and the apprehension of its crew by the Philippine National Police Maritime Group Special Boat Unit were undertaken as actions to enforce maritime laws and to uphold Philippine sovereign rights over its EEZ,” the DFA said in a statement.

The department said the authorities in Palawan would deal with the case “in a just, humane and expeditious manner.”

Seized by ‘armed men’

The apprehension of the Chinese vessel and its crew was reported in Beijing on Wednesday as a “seizure” perpetrated by “armed men not far from the Philippines.”

“Several armed men forced themselves onto the boat and fired four or five shots in the air. They then took control of the boat,” the Chinese state news agency Xinhua said.

Xinhua identified the vessel as the Qionggionghai 09063. It said contact with the 11 fishermen was lost after the interception of the boat.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila had no immediate comment on the latest incident in the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea.

Lying around 111 km west of Palawan, Hasa-Hasa Shoal is located on the eastern edge of the Spratly archipelago, a chain of islands, islets, reefs and shoals believed to be sitting atop vast oil and natural gas reserves.

China’s insistence that it owns all of the Spratlys and nearly the whole South China Sea—including the West Philippine Sea—has set it against the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan, all of which claim parts of the strategic waterway through which passes a third of annual global cargo.

The Philippines has taken its territorial dispute with China to the United Nations for arbitration, while Vietnam has sent out naval vessels to prevent a Chinese oil rig from setting up in the Paracels, in the part of the South China Sea within Hanoi’s own EEZ.

Standoff in Paracels

Vietnamese and Chinese vessels collided in the area as a result of the standoff on May 4, but no guns were fired or injuries reported, according to a Vietnamese official.

The incidents came days after US President Barack Obama visited Asia to underline his commitment to allies in the region, including the Philippines and Japan, which is also locked in a territorial dispute with China in the East China Sea.

Obama, promoting a strategic “pivot” toward the Asia-Pacific region, also visited South Korea and Malaysia, but not China.—With a report from AFP

Source: globalnation.inquirer.net/103759/seizure-of-fishing-boat-angers-china-demands-explanation

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China: Armed men seize 11 fishermen near PH
DFA: PH authorities nabbed boat carrying endangered marine species
Matikas Santos and Julianne Love De Jesus
INQUIRER.net and Associated Press
May 7, 2014

BEIJING — China says it has lost contact with 11 fishermen allegedly taken away by armed men in disputed South China Sea waters.

The official Xinhua News Agency says the men were on the vessel Qiongqionghai 09063 when it was intercepted by armed men who fired warning shots in the air on Tuesday morning near Half Moon Shoal not far from the Philippines.

Xinhua said a second Chinese fishing boat operating nearby outran another boatload of armed men. Two other boats in the area were mobilized to conduct a search, but had turned up nothing by Wednesday morning.

But a statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs said that Philippine authorities seized a Chinese fishing boat in the West Philippine Sea for carrying endangered marine species caught within the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

“The seizing of the Chinese fishing boat, carrying large numbers of endangered species, and the apprehension of its crew by the Philippine National Police (PNP) Maritime Group Special Boat Unit were undertaken as actions to enforce maritime laws and to uphold Philippine sovereign rights over its EEZ,” the DFA said.

“Relevant authorities in Palawan will address this case in a just, humane and expeditious manner,” it said.

In Camp Crane, Chief Superintendent Reuben Theodore Sindac, Philippine National Police Public Information chief, said maritime police captured the Chinese vessel that carried about 500 turtles and arrested its captain Chen Hi Quan and his 10 personnel.

The other boat, according to Sindac, was occupied by five Muslim passengers. Seized from their vessel were about 40 turtles.

He added the arrested individuals will be brought to an island in Barangay (village) Liminangcong, Taytay town in Palawan.

Meanwhile, Chief Superintendent Noel Vargas, PNP Maritime Group chief, said in a phone interview that the suspects will be charged with the violation of wildlife protection.

Vargas said they will inform the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Embassy regarding the incident.
China lays claim to virtually the entire South China Sea and is locked in an increasingly heated dispute with the Philippines, Vietnam and others over rights to energy resources, fishing grounds and island outposts.

China has previously used force to expel Filipino fishermen from Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal) off the coast of Zambales and Ayungin Shoal in the Spratly Group of Islands off Palawan.

Chinese fishermen were found illegally poaching in Panatag Shoal in April 2012 causing a standoff after Chinese coast guard vessels blocked Philippine authorities from apprehending them.

Source: globalnation.inquirer.net/103678/china-says-11-fishermen-missing-near-ph#ixzz314hqFP7E

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May 9, 2014
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=47eTKPh46SU

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May 6, 2014

Poached sea turtles within the Philippine territory.



Photos by: PNP Maritime Group

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Source: www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27293314

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Philippines ignores China demand to free fishermen
Associated Press
May 8, 2014

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police chief says the government will investigate 11 Chinese fishermen to see if they illegally entered the country or committed other crimes, ignoring China's demand for them to be immediately released.

China pressed the Philippines to release the fishermen and their boat, warning Manila Thursday not to take any more "provocative actions so as to avoid further damage to the bilateral relations."

Asked if the Philippines will heed China's demand, national police chief Alan Purisima says the fishermen will be investigated to determine if they illegally entered the country and committed other crimes such as poaching.

Philippine police took the fishermen and their boat into custody Tuesday in a disputed South China Sea shoal, adding the vessel was loaded with more than 350 endangered green sea turtle.

It is the latest territorial spat between the two Asian nations, which have had increasingly tense disputes over two shoals and other areas of the South China Sea.

China earlier said via state media that Chinese officials lost contact with 11 fishermen after they were intercepted by armed men near Half Moon Shoal not far from the Philippines.

The shoal, called Hasa Hasa in the Philippines, is claimed by China as part of the Nansha island chain, known internationally as the Spratly Islands. The Spratlys are a major cluster of potentially oil- and gas-rich islands and reefs long disputed by China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei.

China lays claim to virtually the entire South China Sea and is locked in an increasingly heated dispute with the Philippines, Vietnam and others over rights to energy resources, fishing grounds and island outposts.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. had seen reports that Philippine police have seized Chinese and Philippine fishing boats carrying illegally harvested sea turtles about 60 miles (96 kilometers) off the coast of the Philippines, and detained their crews. She urged both sides to work together diplomatically, and voiced U.S. concern that the vessels appeared to have been engaged in direct harvest of endangered species.

Vargas said the Chinese boat will be taken to the western Philippine province of Palawan, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) from Half Moon Shoal, and the fishermen will face charges of violating Philippine laws prohibiting catches of endangered green sea turtles.

Another boat with Philippine fishermen was also caught in the area with 70 turtles aboard, and those fishermen will face the same charges, Vargas said.

China's official Xinhua News Agency said the Chinese fishermen's vessel was intercepted on Tuesday by armed men who fired warning shots in the air. An official from the Fishing Port Monitoring Center at Tanmen in China's Hainan province confirmed the report. He said he had no other details and declined to give his name, as is common among Chinese bureaucrats.

A Chinese frigate became stuck in the shallows of Half Moon Shoal while on a security patrol in 2012, prompting China to send rescue vessels. - Jim Gomez, Christopher Bodeen

Source: www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/05/08/1320775/philippines-ignores-china-demand-free-fishermen

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Int’l gang seen in turtle poaching
Spratlys feud overshadows illegal Chinese trade in endangered species
Redempto Anda / Inquirer Southern Luzon
May 11, 2014

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY—The mounting tension between the Philippines and China over the Spratlys, reaching new heights with the arrest of 11 Chinese fishers by Philippine maritime police at the disputed Hasa-Hasa Shoal, has overshadowed indications of a rapidly growing international syndicate behind sea turtle poaching, according to Palawan environmentalists and military sources.

The Chinese vessel was caught on Monday by a Philippine National Police Maritime patrol loaded with at least 500 marine turtles, classified internationally as either endangered or critically endangered, depending on species.

A group of local fishermen from the Palawan town of Balabac was also arrested in the same vicinity, again suspected to be engaged in turtle poaching.

As China demanded the outright release of their citizens, Philippine prosecutors went ahead on Friday night with legal procedures to book the Chinese fishers for violation of Philippine laws on poaching of endangered and critically endangered marine turtles.

The prosecutor’s office ordered their detention at the Palawan Provincial Police headquarters jail pending the preliminary investigation of the case for violation of Philippine fisheries laws.

Regional analysts are expecting the Hasa-Hasa incident, along with a string of recent incidents that displayed China’s aggressive behavior to control nearly the entire South China Sea, to become a topic at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ministers’ meeting.

Arrested alongside the Chinese was a group of five local fishers who were booked for poaching, separately with the Chinese, also on Friday.

They were identified by the PNP Maritime Police as Romantic Poyong Amlain, Pusein Amlain, Arturo Asuncion, Kennedy Cahawy and Hussein Baldosa, all residents of Bataraza town, Palawan.

Tagged internationally as Half Moon Shoal, this area in the disputed Spratlys was identified by a military source as a favored “buying station” by Chinese buyers and conniving Filipino fishers.

It was also the site where a Chinese frigate was grounded last year, sparking a diplomatic protest from the Philippines.

“The Chinese boats don’t want to come closer to Palawan shores. They prefer to meet up with their suppliers at Hasa-Hasa (approximately 100 kilometers off Rizal town in southern Palawan),” said the military officer who asked not to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Filipino poachers, according to the source, capture sea turtles around Balabac Strait known among marine conservationists as a “turtle corridor” in the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas.

They collect and store the turtles near the shore before selling these in bulk to the Chinese at prices ranging from P15,000 to P30,000 per turtle depending on their sizes, according to the informant.

The Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD), a local agency tasked with implementing the Philippine Wildlife Act in Palawan, acknowledged that the syndicated operation involving foreign buyers and local suppliers exists.

“That trade has been going on for some time. Usually there’s a mother boat positioned just outside the Philippine territorial waters that collect the turtles,” PCSD legal counsel Adel Villena told the Inquirer.

The military informant added that smaller and faster boats operated by the Chinese sometimes even reach village shores to meet up with suppliers and haul the marine turtles.

Asked if the report submitted by the apprehending officer had indications that the Chinese vessel was equipped with nets and related fishing paraphernalia, Palawan provincial prosecutor Allen Ross Rodriguez told the Inquirer “there was none.”

Rodriguez also noted that the Chinese boat captain spoke Filipino.

“The boat captain even turned out to be conversant in Filipino,” Rodriguez said in an interview on Friday.

The Chinese nationals opted to waive their rights in order to question their arrest in the course of the preliminary investigation of the case.

Source: newsinfo.inquirer.net/601169/intl-gang-seen-in-turtle-poaching#ixzz31Mi54x4d

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Shipment from ‘Slaughter Shoal’: Police unload illegally-hunted pawikans
CHINO GASTON,GMA News
May 10, 2014


PUERTO PRINCESA, Palawan - I feel my anger building within, as the number of sea turtle carcasses piled on the concrete pier continued to be grow.

More than a dozen turtles in varying degrees of decay were already rotting in the sun as policemen struggled to transfer each carcass from a small boat onto the pier.

These were gentle and beautiful sea creatures, mercilessly butchered for profit. That these graceful denizens of the deep were killed by Chinese fishermen conspiring with a few of my countrymen makes the crime even more painful.

It was ironic that despite the increasing tension between both countries, a handful of Chinese and Filipino fishermen were cooperating within disputed territorial waters to do something as destructive as poaching endangered wildlife.

The stench is overpowering as I move between the lifeless hulks of shell and putrefied flesh. The bigger hawksbill turtles, over a meter long and weighing close to 100 kilograms, seem frozen in repose, lidded eyes half-closed, their mouths set in an almost serene smile.

I try to nudge one turtle with my foot, hoping it would show signs of life. But these turtles would never perform their graceful ballet over the coral reefs they once called home.

Smaller species of turtle had also perished within the cramped hold of the ship and lay alongside their bigger brethren. To the casual passerby, they looked like baby hawksbills.

A particularly large turtle was missing its right flipper. The wound had long healed, a short stump replacing the severed appendage. It was an injustice that this grand old dame of the sea had survived for so long with its handicap, only to die at the hands of men.

Any scuba diver will tell you that it is a privilege to see sea turtles in the wild. The shy giants are inquisitive creatures that often swim with divers above the reef. I've seen them before, their large, bulging eyes peering at at from behind rocks, curious and always gentle.

I swallow an upwelling choke and soldier on with coverage.

Call it Slaughter Shoal

For hundreds of years, fishermen have considered sea turtles as harbingers of hope and good luck.

Yet here they lie, slaughtered, suffocated or starved to death, prisoners within the hold of the Chinese fishing boat moored a few meters away. The very men who looked to them once for good fortune, had become their executioners.

Eleven Chinese fishermen were arrested by members of the PNP Martime Group while patrolling Hasa-Hasa Shoal, some 80 nautical miles off the coast of Palawan. A group of five Filipino fishermen was also arrested aboard a separate boat that was laden with around 70 live sea turtles.

Disputed territory or not, environmentalists in Palawan like Gerthie Anda, a lawyer with the Environmental Legal Assistance Council or ELAC, says the large-scale slaughter of endangered wildlife is a travesty to be condemned by both countries.

"We have enough international and national laws to protect our marine environment and conserve wildlife. The full force of these laws must be applied."

A member of the police team that made the arrests agreed to speak to us on condition of anonymity.

He said the Chinese were slaughtering the turtles while anchored near the shoal, where sea turtles are in abundance. He says severed heads and discarded entrails of the turtles littered the reef.

"We no longer call it Hasa-Hasa Shoal. Slaughter Shoal is more appropriate.", he says with a dark, grim smile.

The Filipinos arrested near the area were allegedly part of the operation. "The Filipinos catch the turtles and sell them to the Chinese," he said.

A video clip from the arrest showed live turtles swimming inside the hull of the ship in what looked like a make-shift holding tank. The deck, on the other hand, was stained red from the blood of the newly-butchered turtles. Over a hundred of the aquatic reptiles lay upside down, their throats slit.

Freezers full of turtle meat were discovered inside the ship as were as over 200 stuffed turtles and 76 turtle shells.

Our source believes the operation is being financed by local wildlife poaching syndicates who take advantage of the government's limited monitoring and patrolling capabilities, especially in the high seas.

He says there were indications that the illegal trade between the Chinese and Filipino fishermen had been going on for quite some time.

For instance, the captain of the captured Chinese vessel already possesed a smattering of Filipino words when he was interrogated by the police.

Both Chinese and Filipino fishermen have already been charged with violations of environmental laws before the Palawan Provincial Prosecutor's Office.

This could mean imprisonment for up to 12 years but the offense is bailable, which means the perpetrators can go free once they pay the reccommended bail bond.
Survivors released into the sea

Thankfully, not all turtles within the Chinese ship had perished. Over 177 turtles were still alive and released into the sea.

As the large turtles were released into Honda Bay in Puerto Princesa, they promptly dove into the water and disappeared from sight.

The smaller ones were already weakened from their ordeal and lay limp in the hands of their rescuers. But as the policemen carrying them neared the water, they seemed to come alive, their small flippers rotating like propellers at the sight and smell of water.

One small turtle briefly floated on the surface, seemingly unsure of its freedom. Then, with a flurry of its flippers it seemed to wave goodbye before disappearing under the waves. — JDS, GMA News

Source: www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/360477/news/specialreports/shipment-from-slaughter-shoal-police-unload-illegally-hunted-pawikans