Warehouse owners deny knowledge of poached marine species

A Zamboanga couple claimed during Monday’s Senate environment hearing that they had no idea that contraband marine resources were stashed inside their warehouse. Benny and Rosario Yu of Yuscom Corporation said they did not know that their client Li and Lim Trading was storing poached marine resources inside their warehouse in Zamboanga. "Hindi ho namin alam kung (We don't know) what is going inside the warehouse. Actually ho we don't monitor that, we rarely go to the warehouse," said Rosario. Benny Yu admitted, however, that he has known since 1997 Joe Pring (a.k.a. ‘Jok Beng,’ ‘Jo Beng Li,’ ‘Li Yu Ming’), one of the owners of the Zamboanga-based Li and Lim Trading. Rosario likewise said that Pring's wife Olivia Lim Li was her high school classmate, although she said they were never really close and rarely spoke to each other. Benny added that he has only been renting out their warehouse to Pring since 2004, thinking that Pring was storing sea shells to make jewelry. "Di ko alam negosyo niya (I actually don't know what his business is)," he said. He also said that he did not know that there were cases filed against Pring in 2007 and 2008 regarding the poaching and possession of certain marine species. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, however, did not believe the couple. "Imposible, kaibigan mo siya, wag mo ako bobolahin (That's impossible, he's your friend, so don't try to fool me)," he said during the hearing. Earlier in the hearing, the Senate sergeant-at-arms revealed that the Li and Pring fled the country last week. Enrile asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to have Pring and his wife Li extradited, to sack the two prosecutors who sat on their earlier poaching case, and open their case for reinvestigation. Li and Lim Trading had tapped the shipping firm JKA Transport system to ship 163 stuffed hawkbills and green turtles; 21,169 pieces of black corals; 7,340 pieces of Trumpet and Helmet shells and 196 kilograms of sea whips. The items were declared as raw rubber. — MRT/KBK, GMA News