In a voyage that should merit a “What Went Wrong?” episode, an American minesweeper equipped to spot mines as small as a basketball smashed into a protected reef the size of 2.4 million basketball courts. For that blunder, the US Navy will now chop the P10-billion USS Guardian into pieces and pay millions in fines. Experts say it will take ages for the mowed corals to grow back. But at least reparations will be made and repair will be undertaken on the underwater garden that the USS Guardian used as a parking lot. Which is a kind of amends that has never been seen in other damaged reefs in the country. And, if I may add, a mea culpa which the Chinese never offered when one of their gunboats plowed into one of our atolls in the Spratlys last year.

Quiboloy, A. ( 2013, February 4). The sorry state of our reefs. Manila Standard, p. A5.