The mine countermeasures ship (MCM-5) USS Guardian sits aground Tuesday Jan. 22, 2013 on the Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea in Philippines where it ran aground on Jan. 17, 2013. A fisherfolk group urges the Philippine government to remind the US to pay for the damage it brought and face legal cases. Nearly a year after the USS Guardian ran aground in the Philippine waters and gravely damaged the coral reefs of Tubbataha a World Heritage Site the US is yet to pay the National Government for the damage it did to the protected marine sanctuary. An alliance of fisherfolk groups on Thursday urged the Aquino administration to hold the US accountable and remind it of its financial obligations after its ship crushed long stretches of coral reefs on Jan. 17, 2013. The Philippines has fined the US government Php 58 million for the damage. The grounding incident has damaged an estimate of 4,000 Sq.m. of coral reefs in Tubbataha, a UNESCO declared heritage site inhabited by rich marine species.
