Authorities stormed a residential area in Pasay City and rescued more than 300 assorted wildlife animals, mostly cockatoos, as part of an ongoing campaign against illegal wildlife trade, an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said on Wednesday.
The raiding team arrested Abraham Bernales, a pet stall owner in the Cartimar Market in Pasay City, during a buy-bust operation at the suspect’s house in Pasay on Tuesday.
Bernales has been convicted twice in previous years for illegal wildlife trade, a violation under Republic Act (RA) 9147, or the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act.
A criminal complaint has been filed against Bernales for illegal trading and illegal possession of wildlife species in violation of Section 27(e) and (f) of the Wildlife Act before the Department of Justice.
If found guilty, Bernales could be slapped with penalties of at least four years in prison and/or a fine of P300,000.
Director Theresa Mundita S. Lim of the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) said the suspect has been under surveillance by the National Bureau of Investigation Environmental Crime Division (NBI-EnCD) and the DENR-BMB’s wildlife law-enforcement team for the past two months after receiving a tip from a concerned citizen through the social media.
The suspect was maintaining several heads of Sugar glider, an exotic mammal native to Australia, New Ginea, Moluccas Island and Indonesia, in his residence-cum-wildlife holding and trading area in San Gregorio Village, Pasay City.
“Social media is a very powerful tool in the fight against illegal wildlife trade,” Lim said, citing the successful raid by the NBI-EnCD and the DENR-BMB team of wildlife law enforcers.
Lim added the DENR continues to receive tips from netizens, providing valuable information about illegal wildlife trade happening in their areas.
“We are able to get information from social-media [users] and immediately start surveillance and case buildup,” Lim said.
According to the NBI-EnCD, they received information from an asset on March 12, about a major shipment of endangered cockatoos and other animals from Indonesia to be delivered to Bernales, prompting the NBI-EnCD and DENR-EMB to plan and execute the buy-bust operation.
A total of 312 heads of various species of wild fauna endemic or native to Australia, Indonesia and New Guinea, comprised of Papua New Guinea, a separate country, and the Indonesian island-provinces of Papua and West Papua, collectively and formerly called Irian Jaya.
The seized wild animals, with an estimated market value of P50 million, are composed of 106 sulfur-crested cockatoos, 26 Moluccan cockatoos, 23 black palm cockatoo, 17 black-capped lories, 16 rainbow lories, seven red bird of paradise, three large fig parrot, two wallaby, 110 sugar glider and three emu.
Five of the sugar glider were already dead when the raiding team pounced on Bernales’s residence.
Lim said the rescued animals are now under the care of the BMB-managed National Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center at the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center.
As a standard operating procedure, the rescued animals will be screened for possible diseases like avian influenza.
Except for the wallaby, sugar glider and emu, all the seized animals are listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites). Being on the Cites list, trade of these species is subject to Cites Export Permit from the countries of origin and corresponding import permit from the country of destination.
The DENR-BMB is the designated national Cites Management Authority in the Philippines for terrestrial species, as provided under Section 19 of the Wildlife Act.
For non-Cites species like the wallaby, sugar glider and emu, a clearance from the DENR, through the concerned regional office, is required prior to importation.
Lim said the latest arrest of unscrupulous businessmen engaged in the illegal wildlife trade sends a very strong signal to the international community to stop using the Philippines as a source or a conduit of illegal wildlife trade.
“We will not allow illegal wildlife traders to profit from our endangered species,” Lim said.