A Chinese vessel that ran into a protected coral reef in the southwestern Philippines held evidence of even more environmental destruction inside: more than 22,000 pounds of meat from a protected species, the pangolin or scaly anteater.

The steel-hulled vessel hit an atoll on April 8 at the Tubbataha National Marine Park, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site on Palawan island. Coast guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Armand Balilo said Monday that 400 boxes, each containing 25 to 30 kilograms of frozen pangolins, were discovered during a second inspection of the boat Saturday.

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The World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines said the Chinese vessel F/N Min Long Yu could have been carrying up to 2,000 of the toothless, insect-eating animals rolled up in the boxes, with their scales already removed.

"It is bad enough that the Chinese have illegally entered our seas, navigated without boat papers and crashed recklessly into a national marine park and World Heritage Site," said WWF-Philippines chief executive officer Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan. "It is simply deplorable that they appear to be posing as fishermen to trade in illegal wildlife."

The boat's 12 Chinese crewmen are being detained on charges of poaching and attempted bribery, said Adelina Villena, the marine park's lawyer. She said more charges are being prepared against them, including damaging the corals and violating the country's wildlife law for being found in possession of the pangolin meat.

It is not yet clear which of the four Asian pangolin species the meat comes from. The International Union of Conservation of Nature lists two species as endangered: the Sunda, or Malayan, pangolin, and the Chinese pangolin. Two others, including the Philippine pangolin endemic to Palawan, are classified as near threatened.

The animals are protected in many Asian nations, and an international ban on their trade has been in effect since 2002, but illicit trade continues. The meat and scales of the pangolin fetch hundreds of dollars per kilogram in China, where many believe they cure various ailments.

The IUCN says rising demand for pangolins and lax laws are wiping out the toothless anteaters from their forest habitat in Southeast Asia.

Alex Marcaida, an officer of the government's Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, Philippine authorities consider the Philippine pangolin threatened because of unabated illicit trade. He said the Chinese crewmen have said the pangolins came from Indonesia, but officials were still verifying the claim.

WWF-Philippines said the global illegal wildlife trade is estimated to yield at least $19 billion per year, comprising the fourth-largest illegal global trade after narcotics, product and currency counterfeiting and human trafficking. It said the risks are low compared with other crimes, and that high-level traders are rarely arrested, prosecuted or convicted.

The Philippine military quoted the fishermen as saying they accidentally wandered into Philippine waters from Malaysia. They were being detained in southwestern Puerto Princesa city, where Chinese consular officials visited them.

Tubbataha is a 239,700-acre marine sanctuary and popular diving destination 400 miles southwest of Manila. The massive reef already had been damaged by a U.S. Navy ship that got stuck in January and had to be dismantled.

The fishermen face up to 12 years' imprisonment and fines of up to $300,000 for the poaching charge alone. For possession of the pangolin meat, they can be imprisoned up to six years and fined, Villena said.

 

MANILA, Philippines — On the face of it Philippine Cardinal Luis Antonio "Chito" Tagle has a lot going for him as a contender for pope. He's young: At 55, the second youngest of the cardinals. He sings and preaches on television, and has 120,000 followers on Facebook.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has named him among the three "least worst" papal candidates because of the way he has spoken out on sex abuse by members of the clergy.

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He speaks fluent Italian, English and Tagalog, and his French and Latin are said to pretty good too. The National Catholic Reporter recently called him "an effective missionary and communicator," and described him as the face of a "dynamic and relatively angst-free form of Catholicism."

 

He became something of a protégé of Pope Benedict, and if elected would be Asia's first pope.

Before getting carried away, though, it is worth looking at what he has been doing with those communication skills and the state of Catholic Church here in the Philippines.

It is locked in a fierce battle with the government over social reform, in what has become a struggle for hearts and minds in a country where for centuries the church wielded enormous and almost unchallenged power.

Four-fifths of the Philippines' 104 million people are Catholic, and the country has one of the highest birth rates in Asia.

The most recent dispute was over a law to help the country's poorest women gain access to birth control and introduce sex education in public schools and family-planning training for community health officers. It was finally passed by parliament late last year after being stalled for a decade by opposition from the church.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippine declared that "contraception is corruption!" and that the moral fiber of the nation was at risk.

Critics say the Church's doctrinaire attitude has for decades been the biggest single drag on social and economic development in the Philippines, where the U.N. estimates that half the country's 3.4 million annual pregnancies are unintended, and improved maternal health care would save hundreds of pregnancy-related deaths every year.

A large banner opposing the law still hangs on Manila Cathedral, and the Catholic groups are mobilizing for forthcoming senate elections, where they intend to target senators who supported the legislation.

The passing of what's called the Reproductive Health Act was a severe blow to an institution that had commanded almost unwavering support.

Suddenly it is no longer taboo to defy the church, and President Benigno Aquino III has vowed to press on with changes, with reformers urging him to liberalize abortion and divorce laws.

Surprisingly, the coverage of the conclave by the Philippine media has been very low key, though that could change if it drags on and Tagle is seen as having a serious chance.

There is nothing Filipinos like more than seeing one of their own making a big impact on the global stage. One young woman even described the battle for the papacy as rather like watching Filipino boxing sensation Manny Pacquiao in one of his international prize fights, and feeling the same sense of pride.

On the face of it, there's a big difference between the boxing ring and the Sistine Chapel, yet both require some pretty deft footwork.

And Tagle, with his easy smile and disarming charm, will be a key player, even if he is regarded as an outside bet for the crown.

But his is not the easy charm of a social reformer. Far from it. And reformers here in Manila fear that in the knockabout world of Philippine politics, a strong performance by Tagle in Rome could strengthen the hand of conservatives at home fighting what many regard as much-needed reforms.

NEW BATAAN, Philippines -- A typhoon that had left the Philippines after killing nearly 600 people and leaving hundreds missing in the south has made a U-turn and is now threatening the country's northwest, officials said Saturday.

The weather bureau issued storm warnings over parts of the main northern island of Luzon after Typhoon Bopha veered northeast. There was a strong possibility the storm would make a second landfall Sunday, but it might also make a loop and remain in the South China Sea, forecasters said. In either case, it was moving close to shore with much-reduced winds near its center of 35 mph. Still, disaster officials warned of heavy rains and winds and possible landslides in the mountainous region.

Another calamity in the north would stretch recovery efforts thin. Most government resources, including army and police, are currently focused on the south, where Bopha hit Tuesday before moving west into the South China Sea.

With many survivors still in shock, soldiers, police and outside volunteers formed most of the teams searching for bodies or signs of life under tons of fallen trees and boulders swept down from steep hills surrounding the worst-hit town of New Bataan, municipal spokesman Marlon Esperanza said.

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"We are having a hard time finding guides," he told The Associated Press. "Entire families were killed and the survivors ... appear dazed. They can't move."

 

He said the rocks, mud, tree trunks and other rubble that litter the town have destroyed landmarks, making it doubly difficult to search places where houses once stood.

On Friday, bodies found jammed under fallen trees that could not be retrieved were marked with makeshift flags made of torn cloth so they could be easily spotted by properly equipped teams.

Authorities decided to bury unidentified bodies in a common grave after forensic officials process them for future identification by relatives, Esperanza said.

The town's damaged public market has been converted into a temporary funeral parlor. A few residents milled around two dozen white wooden coffins, some containing unidentified remains.

One resident, Jing Maniquiz, 37, said she rushed home from Manila for the wake of two of her sisters, but could not bring herself to visit the place where her home once stood in Andap village. Her parents, a brother and nephew are missing.

"I don't want to see it," she said tearfully. "I can't accept that in just an instant I lost my mother, my father, my brother."

She said that at the height of the typhoon, her mother was able to send her a text message saying trees were falling on their house and its roof had been blown away.

Maniquiz said her family sought refuge at a nearby health center, but that was destroyed and they and dozens of others were swept away by the raging waters.

"We are not hopeful that they are still alive. We just want to find their bodies so that we will have closure," she said.

Mary Joy Adlawan, a 14-year-old high school student from the same village, was waiting for authorities to bury her 7-year-old niece.

Her parents, an elder sister, five nieces and a nephew are missing.

"I don't know what to do," she said as she fixed some flowers on the coffin.

Esperanza said heavy equipment, search dogs and chain saws were brought by volunteers from as far away as the capital, Manila, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) to the north.

Nearly 400,000 people, mostly from Compostela Valley and nearby Davao Oriental provinces, have lost their homes and are crowded inside evacuation centers or staying with relatives.

The typhoon plowed through the main southern island of Mindanao, crossed the central Philippines and lingered over the South China Sea for the past two days. It made a U-turn Saturday and is now threatening the northwestern Ilocos region.

President Benigno Aquino III, after visiting the disaster zone, declared a state of national calamity late Friday to speed up rescue and rehabilitation, control prices of basic commodities in typhoon-affected areas and allow the quick release of emergency funds.

In Bangkok, Thailand, U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said the Philippines had appealed for international aid. She said many countries have already provided assistance, but did not specify the amounts.

Officials say 276 people were killed in Compostela Valley, including 155 in New Bataan, and 277 in Davao Oriental. About 40 people died elsewhere and nearly 600 are still missing, 411 from New Bataan alone.

Farmer Cresencia Blanco, 57, told Reuters that she and her neighbors around Osmena town had been neglected in the relief effort.

"They are focused on New Bataan," she said. "Since the typhoon struck, we only got a total of four kilos of rice, that's all."

Nearby, Blanco's son, Monching, held up a placard that read: "We're hungry. We don't have relief goods. Have mercy on us." 

As people from Osmena gathered along a highway, a convoy of trucks carrying food supplies rumbled past, with people scrambling madly for packs of noodles thrown from the trucks.

Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon told the AP that clean water and shelter were the biggest problem in three towns facing the Pacific Ocean. She said she imposed a curfew there and ordered police to guard stores and shops to stop looting.

The Philippines is also counting economic losses. Banana growers reported that 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) of export banana plantations, equal to 18 percent of the total in Mindanao, were destroyed. The Philippines is the world's third-largest banana producer and exporter, supplying international brands such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte.

Stephen Antig, executive director of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association, said losses were estimated at 12 billion pesos ($300 million), including 8 billion pesos ($200 million) in damaged fruits that had been ready for harvest, and the rest for the cost of rehabilitating farms, which will take about a year.

In some parts of Mindanao, people took to gold panning as floodwaters swept a mining area in Mawab town. "Now, I can repair the roofs of my house," Alexander Chavez told Reuters as entire families descended on a river to gather gold tailings. 

At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI expressed closeness to the people hit by the typhoon. "I pray for the victims, for their families and for the many homeless," the pontiff said Saturday, addressing pilgrims and tourists from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square.

This article includes reporting by The Associated Press and Reuters.

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Updated at 2 p.m. ET: NEW BATAAN, Philippines – Rescue workers found a 54-year-old man clinging to a boulder by a river – injured but alive – two days after a powerful typhoon ravaged the south of the Philippines.

At least 420 people were killed and nearly 400 are missing, The Associated Press reported Thursday, citing Philippines authorities.

All Carlos Agang had to eat was coconut and water until he was found in a tattered shirt with a fractured leg and bruises by a group of rescue volunteers in New Bataan town in Compostela Valley, the province worst hit by Typhoon Botha. Reuters initially reported he was 77, but later corrected his age.

"I can't believe it. I didn't expect to see people survive two days after they were swept by flood and mud," fire volunteer Mark Roman Jumilla told Reuters.

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"For two days, he survived on coconut and water. He lost his family when floodwaters swept a temporary shelter area where he and his family sought refuge," Jumilla said.

Rescuers also found a pregnant woman on the other side of the river with her one-year son after escaping floods that swamped their house after Typhoon Bopha hit land on Tuesday.

"It happened so fast. Water came rushing to us while we were leaving our house to move to safer grounds," Lenlen Medrano, 23, told Reuters as she was being carried by soldiers in a stretcher.

"I prayed hard over and over until we found ourselves on the riverbank," she added.

A Reuters photographer saw four bodies near the spot where Agang was rescued. The river's current was strong, making it hard for rescue teams to reach other survivors.

'Entire families were washed away' as Typhoon Bopha hits

The death toll could rise further, with local government officials reporting hundreds missing.

PhotoBlog: Grief amid Bopha's destruction

About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year, often causing death and destruction. Almost exactly a year ago, Typhoon Washi killed 1,500 people in Mindanao.

Arturo "Arthur" Uy, governor of Compostela Valley, said search and rescue operations were continuing, particularly in far-flung areas in New Bataan town, where a three-year old child was plucked from under a crumpled house on Wednesday, more than 24 hours after the typhoon made landfall. The child's mother and a sibling are missing.

"I believe we can rescue more people," Uy told Reuters. "We evacuated people from riverbanks and shorelines. But the floods and strong winds battered not just the riverbanks but also places where residents were supposed to be safe."

A few residents in Compostela Valley started repairing their houses, but for majority, rebuilding will not be easy.

"I don't know what to do now," coconut farmer Roger Calarian told Reuters while queuing for a rice ration at the center of New Bataan town. "I lost my house, I lost my livelihood. I want to rebuild my hut but I don't think I have the energy to do that now."

Calarian said he and his wife were lucky to have survived when coconut trees crashed on their house on Tuesday. "We prayed, hugged each other until the winds calmed down, and then we crawled out to safety," he added. 

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