|
|
|
|
Part I: The homemade blasting-cap business
Making explosives for blast fishing is easy and requires no special skills.
In the Philippines, a nitrate-based fertilizer, in powder form, is commonly
used. It is mixed with methyl alcohol or gasoline, and the mixture is
poured into a glass bottle (softdrink bottles are most often used), which
is filled to the brim, covered with a blasting
cap or detonator, and then sealed with melted candle wax - a simple
recipe for environmental disaster that, even now, continues to devastate
precious coastal habitats across the archipelago.
The law offers a solution. Theoretically, regulations make it difficult
for most people to procure either nitrates or blasting caps, the main
ingredients in homemade explosives. The sale of nitrates is regulated.
To buy nitrates, a person must secure a clearance from the Chief of Police
(for small quantities) or the Philippine National Police-Firearms and
Explosives Division (commercial quantities).
Blasting caps, on the other hand, may only be sold to licensed blast foremen
of quarrying, mining or construction companies.
And yet, in practice, nitrates and blasting caps are too-easily available.
Despite numerous regulations,
these items proliferate in the market.
This article discusses, in this issue, the blasting cap market and, in
the next issue, the nitrate trade, and explores the reasons why the illegal
side of these businesses continues to persist.
Blasting caps and
dynamite used for fishing in the Philippines
A backyard business
In 1999, the PNP Firearms and Explosives Division (PNP-FED) reported that
there were only eight registered explosive manufacturers in the Philippines,
and they were authorized to supply blasting caps and explosives only to
licensed blasters for use in mining and other related activities. There
is no known documentation on the source of blasting caps that these manufacturers
use. What is most certain is that the blasting caps used for blast fishing
come from Talisay, a city south of Cebu City and the center of a backyard
industry that manufactures in commercial quantities what has come to be
known as the "Talisay Blasting Cap" or TBC.
Reports coming from the Cebu City Bantay Dagat Commission (CCBDC) say
that TBCs are attractive to blast fishers because they are safe, effective
and cheap and, simply, because they are readily available. The Central
Visayas PNP Firearms and Explosives Office (PNP-FEO) confirms this. Both
CCBDC and FEO say that TBCs are being manufactured in backyards in at
least 6 barangays (villages) in Talisay. None of these backyard enterprises
is licensed.
How it started
Townsfolk say that blasting cap manufacturing and blast fishing in Talisay
rose out of events surrounding World War II. Toward the end of the war,
Talisay beach saw fierce encounters between the resisting Japanese soldiers
and American liberators. A testimony from this segment of Philippine history
is a village called Tangke (Visayan term for "tank") Talisay,
which was named after the numerous amphibious war machines left there
after World War II. But tanks were not the only valuable remnants of the
war; also littering the beach were unspent ammunitions and gunpowder,
a large deposit of explosive substances that would later have serious
repercussions of national magnitude to fisheries.
Tangke residents, perhaps having seen during the war the effects on fisheries
of bombs exploding at sea, transformed the beach into a large laboratory
for manufacturing explosives. Thus started a homegrown explosives-making
cottage industry involving mostly fishers and their families, who began
producing explosives for their own use in fishing or to sell to other
fishers. It did not take long for the business to prosper. As news of
the lucrative blast fishing business spread, Tangke's market for explosives
expanded to other towns and provinces.
Over the years, homegrown techniques developed by local 'masters' were
shared with other towns and a younger generation of explosive-makers.
In the 1960s, as their gunpowder stocks dwindled, the explosive-makers
switched to nitrates. Nitrates, although relatively weaker in terms of
firepower than gunpowder, have the same effect of killing a large number
of fishery resources in a single impact. Marketed chiefly for use as fertilizer,
they easily replaced gunpowder as primer for explosives, requiring little,
if any, new skills for the Talisay craftsmen to learn.
It is this shift to nitrates that gave rise to the TBC industry: Nitrates
will not explode unless detonated by a blasting cap.
Talisay's
blasting caps find their way to several provinces in Luzon, Visayas and
Mindanao through a network of dealers and sub-dealers.
And so, engendered by the Talisay blast makers' vast experience and an
established market network for their products, a new breed of explosive-makers
specializing in blasting caps began to prosper. Using readily available
alternative materials and somehow finding a way to circumvent strict regulations
governing the purchase of safety fuses, these
ingenious craftsmen fashioned their own imitation of factory-made blasting
caps. Their reputation in the explosives black market spread easily, and
demand for their product, the TBC, increased.
With the influx of dealers from every part of the country putting more
pressure on production, the manufacturers' efficiency increased. By the
late 1980's, the TBC industry had developed a sophisticated support network
of financiers, contractors, subcontractors, dealers and sub-dealers.
Today, skilled TBC makers may be found in the Talisay villages of Cansojong,
San Roque, Biasong, Pook, Gimbal and Tangke. These six villages directly
supply the blast fishers of Pangasinan, Masbate, Navotas, Palawan and
Batangas in Luzon, Panay Island in Western Visayas, the whole of Central
Visayas, Samar and Leyte Provinces and all of Mindanao. In areas with
no direct access to Talisay, there are dealers to serve the blast fishers'
growing demand for TBC.
The enforcement issue
The TBC industry operates illegally but, by all accounts, not clandestinely.
By force of tradition, blasting-cap manufacturing has become a socially
acceptable enterprise, at least where Talisay townsfolk - and even some
government officials and law enforcers - are concerned. TBCs are made
in the backyard with almost all members of the household, from the children
to the elderly, participating at different stages in the assembly line.
The operations are hidden from public view, but it is common knowledge
in Talisay who and where the blasting cap makers are.
In general, the effort to control the TBC trade has been hindered by various
socio-cultural, political, economic and institutional factors. According
to insiders, Talisay residents and government officials - even the local
police - observe an unwritten code of silence that makes it difficult
for regional operatives to crack down on the TBC business. The Department
of Interior and Local Government in Region 7 reports that, in the late
1960's, the now defunct Philippine Constabulary, particularly the Criminal
Investigation Service (CIS) and Regional Intelligence Unit, conducted
police operations to curb the blasting-cap trade, but made hardly any
dent. About the only time that TBC manufacturing slowed down was during
the early martial law years, apparently because of increased military
presence in the area. The industry quickly recovered lost ground, and
even prospered, in the 1980s.
A
group of blast fishers and their illegal fishing paraphernalia are
presented to the media by apprehending officers.
By and large, local government officials of Talisay have taken a soft
stand against TBC manufacturing, allegedly for humanitarian reasons, and
appear to have ruled out conventional approaches to law enforcement. Instead,
they put the police at bay and try to engage known TBC manufacturers in
a continuing dialogue. An almost predictable aftermath of past dialogues
was government-sponsored alternative livelihood schemes, which, however,
offered little success. An enterprise development program that provided
soft loans to TBC makers proved ineffectual, largely because it was unable
to compete with the TBC's reputation of providing an almost sure guarantee
of immediate cash returns.
A blasting cap is pegged at Php10 per pair or Php5 apiece at retail, or
Php8 per pair (Php4 apiece) when bought by the hundred (in two bundles
of 50s). This translates to an easy 100-percent profit for the manufacturer,
who spends only about Php4 to produce a pair of blasting caps.
Ominously, the industry, buoyed by an aggressively expanding marketing
network, continues to grow and acquire greater sophistication in its
operations. Indeed, in certain circles, it has become too big and too
influential for law enforcers to control.
In a meeting hosted by the local officials of Talisay facilitated by the
Coastal Resource Management Project
(CRMP) under its Coastal Law Enforcement Alliance in Region 7 (CLEAR-7),
the local government of Talisay resolved to pass an ordinance that will
attempt to address weaknesses and plug loopholes
in existing explosives laws, and address livelihood concerns using
strategies that depart from traditional approaches.
A difficult challenge
The CCBDC contends that strong regulatory mechanisms put up by the
local government unit of Talisay will reduce if not eradicate
blast fishing not only in Talisay itself or in Cebu, but also in a
large portion of the country - if they are accompanied by an equally
strong political will to enforce the regulations.
The Philippine National Police, in particular the Regional FEO, must keep
a tight watch on licensed blasting cap companies who may attempt to grab
the underground market. A hard line enforcement of the explosive laws,
rules and regulations that they are supposed to champion is imperative.
Unless applicable regulatory regimes are in place to monitor and control
the influx, manufacture and actual use of the basic ingredients of explosives,
such as the nitrates and blasting caps, the problem of blast fishing may
remain unresolved. One thing that the FEO must look into and control tightly
is the source of the safety fuse, which, reports indicate, is supplied
by only a few importers.
That is easier said than done. The growing demand for blasting caps makes
the industry more and more lucrative. The PNP-FED recorded close to 22
million pieces of legally manufactured blasting caps from 1994 to 1998.
In addition, safety fuse with a total length of 30 million meters came
into the country during the period. There was also approximately 50 million
kilograms of nitrates imported during those 4 years.
We do not exactly know what quantity of these materials was used legally,
but the rate at which they are coming into the country is alarming and
may prove to be a threat not only to the marine environment but to public
safety as well.
The blasting cap and how it works
A blasting cap consists of an aluminum
cylindrical container on one end and a safety fuse on the other.
Inside the cylindrical container is a small amount of explosives. The
cylinder is embedded in the explosive mixture inside the bottle while
the fuse, which contains black powder, protrudes out of the mouth of the
bottle. The bottle is sealed with melted candle wax. (Fig. 1)
Parts
of a blasting cap and home-made explosive used for fishing in the Philippines
(Click image to enlarge).
When the tip of the fuse is lighted, the black powder burns. The flame
travels in just a few seconds, depending on the length of the fuse, to
reach the cylinder. Once the cylinder is ignited, it produces a low explosion
that agitates the mixture in the bottle and produces the big blast. There
is no appreciable interval between the low explosion and the big blast.
But without the low explosion that the blasting cap produces, the explosive
mixture will not explode.
To be successful, a blast must be properly set off. This is the role of
the blasting cap.
The aluminum cylinder is approximately 4 cm in length and about
5-6 mm in diameter. One end is tightly sealed so that the explosive mixture
inside remains intact, while the other end is connected to a safety fuse.
A safety fuse is a medium through which a flame
is conveyed for direct firing of an explosive charge, in the case of the
blasting cap, to detonate the explosive mixture. It consists of a train
of potassium nitrate black powder, which is tightly wrapped and protected
from abrasion and penetration of water by a covering of tape, textiles
and water proofing materials such as asphalts or plastics. There is
no known local manufacturer of safety fuse in the Philippines.
TBC manufacturing has 2 main stages: 1) the production
of the cylinder cap or the container, and 2) the mixing of the primer
and the fuse. There are intermediate stages within these two main stages.
According to regional FEO experts, the first stage is not illegal because
cylinders are merely containers. The second stage, however, is subject
to certain explosive laws, rules and regulations, and is currently the
target of law enforcement. There are attempts in Talisay to pass legislation
that will categorically declare as illegal TBC, its components, and all
intermediate products in its manufacture so that the production of TBC
can be controlled at all stages in the assembly line.
***
|
