Various stakeholders on Friday rejected the proposal to allow commercial fishing vessels to go fishing within the 15-kilometer municipal fishing ground due to its potential adverse impact on the environment and the livelihood of municipal fishermen.
In particular, they rejected House Bill (HB) 7583 filed by Cebu Rep. Pablo John F. Garcia which seeks to allow commercial fishing between 10.1 to 15 kilometers inside the 15-kilometer municipal fishing ground.
They said municipal fishing grounds are already overfished and allowing commercial fishing in municipal fishing grounds will further deplete the country’s fish stocks. Commercial fishing vessels are often accused of using destructive fishing methods that would threaten coastal and marine ecosystems.
More importantly, they said municipal fishers cannot compete with commercial fishing vessels, adding to the fact that municipal fishing grounds are already running out of commercially-viable fish to catch.
Oceana Philippines Vice President Gloria Estenzo Ramos said during an online press conference that commercial fishers and municipal fishers cannot co-exist.
She said the proposed measure, if enacted, “will only give additional ground for additional conflict” between commercial fishers and municipal fishers.
The current law on fisheries, the Amended Fisheries Code or Republic Act (RA) 10654, she said, has introduced “crucial” policy reform needed by the fisheries sector.
“Right now, the law is fine. RA 10654 is not even mentioned in HB 7583. The law states the policy reform. Crucial is the vessel monitoring system that is supposed to be implemented. This is a policy issuance, science-based and participatory fisheries management system. We are closer to the reforms being sought under RA 10654.”
Oceana, an international ocean conservation advocacy nongovernment organization, is pushing for the implementation of the vessel monitoring system and the fisheries management system.
She said a commercial fishing company is pushing for the enactment of the amendatory bill to escape implementation of the vessel monitoring system and fisheries management system that will protect fisheries area and favorably lean toward municipal fishing.
Wilfedo Campos, a marine science and fishery expert from the University of the Philippines-Visayas said the country’s fishing grounds are already overfished and fish stocks are already depleted.
“To sustain fish catch year after year, we must let other fish spawn so that the following year, we will have fish to catch,” he said.
He said the combined catches of the sector will reach its ceiling, if one sector like commercial fishing sector is allowed to go to areas closer to the shore. Commercial fishers will increase their catch, but this could put municipal fishers at a disadvantage.
“Within just weeks or months [of commercial fishing in municipal waters], municipal fishers will be displaced,” he warned.
“The spirit of the Fisheries Code is very clearly, gives preference to the smaller fishermen. If we will amend the provision of the law that is not consistent with the spirt of the law, then little by little, we attack the spirit of the law.”
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