At least the public is taking it serious: There was so much press on the site that it took three traditional Philippinan outrig boats to fit them all in. I went in an inflatable with Ella, Denise and JP from Manila. We only drove five minutes out of the harbour and into the next bay - and found it full of old plastic bottles, sacs, single shoes, thongs, brushes... Even a whole rucksack, swimming on the water! We fished loads and loads out. To fill a big garbage barrel it took us less than ten minutes.

And in the middle of this dump there was an old man on a tyre, diving for mussels! He didn't seem to mind at all, but then what choice does he have? There is no alternative sea he could fish in! We returned to the harbour pier the boats loaded with heaps of rubbish. Volunteers from the Manilan "Eco Waste Coalition" then startet to sort out what could be recycled. With the rest we have something very special planned... find out in the log tomorrow!

©Gavin Newman/Greenpeace

It looked like the walking dead in a zombie movie, and that's what they actually were: zombie mangroves! As we were walking through this graveyard we all got a bit depressed. I felt the urge to touch those mangroves further up the beach that were still alive. An then you read all these exaggerated names on the empty little food bags: "Lucky Me", "Yummy Flakes" or "Clever Bits". If anything is certainly not clever it's buying smallish bags of sweets and throwing into the environment after ten minutes !

And now there is even a bigger menace to the beatiful sea of the Philippines: the huge oil spill near the island of Guimaras. It's the largest oilspill in the history of the Philippines. Greenpeace volunteers are already on site to help, but we are currently asessing what other support we could offer.

See also the slide show about Manila harbour!