- Marcos accused of ignoring fisheries crisis
- Fisherfolk reject aid-focused response
- Aquaculture push faces criticism
The country’s municipal fisherfolk delivered a counter-State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 28, a day after Marcos’ annual speech. The forum was held by marine conservation group Oceana.
The fisherfolk took issue with Marcos’ emphasis on aid distribution while failing to address the sector’s underlying problems, namely the lack of enforcement against commercial fishing vessels in municipal waters.
“To President Marcos: we are not asking for aid. We are asking for assurance that amid the many crises facing the fisheries sector, we will not be left behind,” said Eduardo Diaz, chairman of Ugnayan ng Maliliit na Mangingisda (UMALMA) in Tayabas Bay, a grassroots network of fisherfolk.
Oceana vice-president Von Hernandez described aid as a “false solution” to the health and sustainability of Philippine fisheries, with fish stocks now 88 per cent overfished.
“Dole-outs that are never enough and devoid of dignity. This fisheries sector is propped up only by subsidies, while profits flow to commercial fishers because they continue to exploit fish inside municipal waters due to systemic failure in governance,” said Hernandez.
“And this same regulatory absence will now favour aquaculture operators at the expense of small-scale fisherfolk who will be displaced in their near-shore fishing ground in favour of fish cages and mariculture farms.”
Wrong solutions
This outcry comes after the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DA-BFAR) announced a series of improvements to the fisheries industry.
On July 23, the DA reported that the Marcos administration was accelerating the expansion of the PFDA-Bulan Fish Port Complex (BFPC).
The move is aimed at improving fisheries infrastructure and supporting the country’s seafood supply chain.
“The President wants this completed sooner rather than later because every year we delay is another year of missed income for our fishermen and missed investment opportunities for the region,” said Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr.
Most recently on July 30, Marcos and Tiu Laurel inspected the “modernised” PFDA-Sual Fish Port (PFDA-SFP).
Tiu Laurel said the new and improved fish port was an investment in the country’s fishermen that would ultimately improve incomes for fisherfolk.
Despite the investments, Oceana has dubbed these efforts “wrong solutions to the actual problem”, adding that “cold storage and export markets cannot restock a sea that is being emptied.”
“You cannot fill an ice plant with fish that are no longer there. So, we ask: Is the government doing this for fishers, or for business interests?” said Atty. Rose-Liza Eisma-Osorio, Oceana senior director for campaigns, legal, and policy.
The aquaculture problem
On July 27, DA-BFAR announced that it was promoting the culture of siganids, commonly known as rabbitfish (Siganus spp.) or locally as samaral, as part of a broader strategy to diversify Philippine aquaculture.
The initiative aligns with the government’s efforts to boost aquaculture, which now accounts for the majority of Philippine fisheries output, overtaking capture fisheries.
However, the group warned that the aquaculture boom is obscuring the decline of municipal fisheries.
Eisma-Osorio called the rise in aquaculture a “consequence of a decade-long collapse in capture fisheries”.
Hernandez said: “The pivot to aquaculture itself is an admission that the government has failed to reverse the collapse of capture fisheries. What our oceans need is an honest roadmap to recovery: enforce the 15-kilometer zone, not more schemes to legalise the plunder of waters that belong to small fishers.”
He concluded: “The President named poverty alleviation and food security as his priorities when he was voted into office, but you cannot claim either while ignoring a fisheries crisis that keeps millions of fisherfolk among the poorest Filipinos.”
