Councilor seeks probe into Misor sharks tale

By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

THE vice mayor of El Salvador in Misamis Oriental said he would meet with members of the city’s legislature in order to discuss a course of action over claims that sharks devoured a man’s corpse in the waters off the coastal village of Molugan.

El Salvador vice mayor Eugene Lignes said this even as lawyer Nicandro Borja, a former member of the El Salvador’s legislative body and now a Molugan councilor, called the human-eating sharks story simply unbelievable.

Borja has called on experts and authorities to start an official investigation into the claims of El Salvador’s man-eating sharks.

“Moto-o ta kon na-ay nabilin bisan kumingking nalang,” said Borja. “Imposible kon wala gyoy nabilin. Bisan kita gani magka-on, na-a man gani gyoy momho nga mabilin sa atong plato, isda pa kaha.”

Until now, no one in government has validated the claims of supposed witness Joel Caballa that his group saw sharks feeding on the remains of a man some 10 kilometers off the coast of Molugan early last week.

Caballa, a member of a Bantay Dagat group in El Salvador, turned out to be a volunteer reporter of a local radio station that first broke the story about claims of the human-eating sharks shortly before noon on Tuesday. Dr. Josefino Bascug, a marine biologist and capitol consultant for the environment, earlier said sharks may attack people for a reason but, normally, they do not eat humans.

Broadcaster Joel Jacobo said it started from a mere text message sent to his radio station that informed them about the alleged sighting of sharks. He said they were also advised to call Caballa who was in the area. Soon, other local news media organizations picked the story up.

Based on Caballa’s account, he and at least seven others set out to the sea on boats in order to bring a dead man to shore.

Caballa claimed they were approximately six meters from the corpse when they were shocked to see a shark pounce on it, severing and subsequently eating the hand.

He said the first “shark attack” made the body face upwards, allowing them to see that the dead man sported a mustache and was overweight.

Soon, he said, another shark came, and the two started eating the feet. “Dili kami makadu-ol sa maong patay nga lawas kay gibantayan man sa duha ka iho. Ang usa morag mga duha ka dupa ang kadako, ug ang usa medyo gamay, mga usa ra tingali ka dupa,” Caballa said.

Soon, there were three sharks feeding on the man’s body until nothing was left of it, Caballa alleged. Borja, meanwhile, said he found the story simply incredible even as he called on marine experts, the police, and officials to start an investigation into the alleged human-eating sharks because of its impact on Barangay Molugan, the city of El Salvador, and the province of Misamis Oriental as a whole.

Borja said he has heard numerous urban legends about man-eating sharks in El Salvador and elsewhere for years, and no one has ever presented a single proof that he or she actually saw sharks eating people.
“And I have yet to see one,” he said.

Neither El Salvador officials nor the city police could confirm Caballa’s story, saying there was no single physical evidence.

“Dili pako mo-confirm ana kay estorya ra may akong nadunggan ana,” said Vice Mayor Lignes. Lignes, who is acting mayor of the city, said he would discuss the matter with El Salvador ’s councilors so they could decide on whether or not to allow Caballa’s story to go unchecked or determine if an official investigation would be in order.

El Salvador police director Supt. Jover Amogod said his investigators failed to check on Caballa’s reports because they were prevented by the rough seas.

Amogod said police just took note of the group’s claims that the man stood at around “five feet and five inches, sported a mustache, and was fat.”

Teodoro Bacolod, provincial officer of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), said his office, too, could not validate the claims of Caballa’s group.

Bacolod said he said he sent an investigator to El Salvador who found no signs of sharks and much more, human remains.

But he said he was not ruling out the possibility that sharks fed on the human remains just as what Caballa’s group has claimed because he was supposedly able to watch a “National Geographic” documentary about man-eating sharks.