Philippine Daily Inquirer

Monday, March 18th, 2013

A female Blainville’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) was found dead on Saturday afternoon, hours after coastal residents in Tagum City helped the stranded mammal swim back to sea.

Tagum is some 50 kilometers away from the Davao City.

Darrel Blatchley, owner of Bone Collector Museum Inc. and who has done several necropses and bone preservation of rare marine species, said he found a strip of a fish net and some garbage inside the intestines of the whale.

Since December last year, three whales, including the “super rare” ginkgo-toothed beaked whale (Mesoplodon ginkgodens) and a pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps), had been stranded in Davao shores, Blatchley said. “All died due to human garbage,” he added. Dennis Jay Santos, Inquirer Mindanao

BACOLOD CITY

Robbers take P1M from pawnshop

Five armed men and a woman escaped with P1 million worth of jewelry after pulling off a robbery on F and C Pawnshop on Gonzaga Street on Saturday morning.

The robbers disarmed two pawnshop security guards, ordered them and the five female employees to lie face down on the floor and broke the glass of the display cabinets to take the jewelry, the report said. The robbers escaped aboard a van. Carla P. Gomez, Inquirer Visayas

CEBU CITY

Man jailed for pimping

A young man is now behind bars for allegedly pimping seven women and four men to a foreigner who turned out to be a police informant.

The suspect, 18, will be charged with violation of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003. The law prohibits the publication of names of both suspects and victims. The suspect said he met the foreigner through a dating website, where they chatted and exchanged mobile phone numbers.

The foreigner is an informant of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas, which was conducting surveillance operation on the suspect based on the request of the International Justice Mission, a nongovernment organization fighting human trafficking. Chito O. Aragon, Inquirer Visayas

CABANATUAN CITY

Traders hurt in clash with OMB agents

Three traders were shot and wounded in a clash with agents of the Optical Media Board (OMB) at the public market here on Friday afternoon.

Police said 10 deputized OMB agents raided stalls suspected of selling pirated video and audio disks. Vendors belonging to the local Muslim community claimed they tried to talk with the OMB agents, which irked one of them. Someone opened fire, injuring Cader Nazuman, Jalil Macabtas and Michael Tony, according to Alfred Madado, a vendor who witnessed the altercation.

newsinfo.inquirer.net

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