The Philippines Department of Agriculture (DA) expects a boom in the country’s fisheries sector as it continues to engage with stakeholders to craft and implement policies and programs for sustainable utilization and management of aquatic resources.
With modernization steps to gain momentum for sustainable and inclusive growth, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala is positive that efforts of the government will enable the sector to continue providing stable supply of food, livelihood and ecological services.
Alcala said the DA, through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), has been instituting measures to ensure that fishing in the country’s waters becomes sustainable, and that all forms of fishery resource use provide equitable benefits to stakeholders.
This administration inherited overfished waters and overbuilt fish cage areas that contributed to fish kills and dwindling fishery yields, he added.
To facilitate natural progression of fish breeding cycle, BFAR has successfully enforced four closed fishing seasons from 2011 to 2015.
The enforcement led to resurgence of tamban and galunggong, attracting more tuna that feed on them.
For the first quarter of 2015, the Philippine Statistics Authority has reported that total production of yellow fin tuna increased significantly by 11.76 percent.
The success of the closed season has also led to the Philippines being allowed by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to fish in tuna-rich High Seas Pocket 1 of the Pacific Ocean.
Poor implementation of fishery lawsparticularly to address illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishinghas prompted BFAR to propose training and deployment of additional fishery law enforcers.
In 2010, the bureau had only four fishery law enforcers for the entire Philippines.
With this, the bureau implemented an intensive three-month training course for fishery law enforcers-regulators. The 188 graduates of the course have now been deployed as professional fishery law enforcers, Alcala said.
BFAR has reported that three of the graduates were in fact among the enforcers who captured Taiwanese and Indonesian poachers in Batanes last May.
It has encouraged coastal communities to protect their municipal waters up to 15 kilometers from the shore for the exclusive use of artisanal fisherfolk.
Recognizing the indispensable role of artisanal fisherfolk in the fisheries sector, the government has implemented programs to ensure improved access of small fishers to social services and to reduce poverty incidence among them.
The National Program for Municipal Fisherfolk Registration (FishR) has been able to register over 1.6 million fishers.
This national registry is instrumental in facilitating free insurance coverage for the fisherfolk by the Philippine Crops Insurance Corporation.
The FishR database has been cross-matched with the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction by DSWD.
Fisherfolk listed on both registries will be automatically given a PHilHealth number to serve as ticket to a free health care insurance.
This registration of fisherfolk was mandated by the Fisheries Act of 1998, but it is only during this administration that it has been funded and enforced, Alcala said.
For infrastructure, BFAR expects to complete establishment of 252 community fish landing centers in strategic areas nationwide to be finished by the end of 2015.
These facilities are seen to reduce fisheries post-harvest losses from 25 percent to 18 percent or even lower.
Asis Perez, undersecretary for fisheries and concurrent BFAR national director, said the bureau carefully identified the sites where the facilities would be established using the FishR database, among other data sources.
The National Anti-Poverty Commission assisted in identifying target areas based on poverty incidence and volume of production, among other criteria.
With the reforms and modernization measures the government has implemented especially on IUU fishing, the European Union (EU) has lifted the yellow card warning from the Philippines.
This would mean a greater market potential for Philippine fish exports to the EU and the rest of the international market.
Philippine fish exports to the EU amounted to 9.4 billion in 2013.
Overall, the country’s fishery exports value rose from $634 million in 2010 to $1.156 billion in 2013, with the biggest increase of 42.6 percent happening from 2012 to 2013.
According to the Department of Agriculture, implementation of the amended Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 will help catalyze the government’s drive of modernizing the fisheries sector.
Under the revised law, the penalties imposed for violation of the Fisheries Code were raised from the old law’s 10,000?500,000 range to 500,000?10 million range.
Perez said with the revised fisheries law, the government reemphasizes its call to eradicate all forms of unsustainable use of marine resources that are detrimental to the ecosystem and to the welfare of fisherfolk who depend on these resources.
The revised law would help us protect our waters from degradation, and ensure that the access of small fishers to their municipal waters is guarded from encroachment by large-scale commercial fishers, Perez said.
Alcala believes that the government has indeed put up all the essential measures to secure sustainable and inclusive growth in the fisheries industry, where the poorest among the basic sectorsthe artisanal fisherfolkbelong.
These comprehensive mechanisms for modernized fisheries will altogether become a strong, reliable backbone of a more productive and resilient sector for years to come, he said.
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