Hi everyone,
I'm a foreigner living in the Philippines and I'm a amazed at the pieces & the beauty of dead corals & small and big shells that i find in the island where i am living. corals of all kinds , of all sizes brought by the sea directly to shore. I never broke any living coral and will never do it of course. I'm aware of a very "harsh" legislation with republic act 10654 from 2015 amending the fisheries code 8550 from 1998 that increases significantly penalties in the millions of pesos and even imprisonment. i think its a bit exaggerated for just a few pieces. maybe the law wants to punish big coral poachers and cyanide fishing etc but i haven't found any refernce to any distinction in the law. somewhere i had found that if the gathering or possession was less than 10 kg then the lower penalties of the old 8550 would apply (2.000 to 20.000 pesos) but im not sure about it. also big shells are supposed to be illegal but here everybody has them in their houses, sells them and even eats their meat on a regular basis. even the municipality where i live decorates the square with tridacna squamosa lol. big SM malls sell coral necklaces and big shells and even at airports in manila there are coral shops. so much hypocrisy in my opinion. so much confusion between local laws , customs restrictions, CITES international regulations etc. are we all criminals just because we pick something on the beach or we buy something at the mall? will we be fined millions of pesos and put in prison if we try to bring out of the country a few pieces of dead corals taken from the beach? also all the activities in this forum according to philippine law should be considered illegal as all corals are prohibited, no possession is allowed, except for scientific reasons. i don't agree with this of course but i'm against indiscriminate coral poaching of course.
let the discussion start if you wish
Maraming Salamat!
ps: i mean the governor of palawan can build dams made of dead coral and i cannot keep a few pieces from the beach? LOL
read the article below:
http://www.rappler.com/nation/156245-pa ... an-vicente