Fishermen ask gov’t to ban tuna imports from Taiwan

Fisher folk group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) yesterday asked the government to impose a total ban on tuna coming from Taiwan, citing the risk it poses to the P4.5-billion local tuna industry.

According to Pamalakaya, non-export grade tuna from Taiwan are being dumped daily at the Davao Fish Port and sold at the markets of Davao, Sarangani, and General Santos.

"We cannot afford our small tuna fisher folk to linger in hunger and poverty and our homegrown tuna industry die before our eyes," said Fernando Hicap, national chairman of Pamalakaya.

The group said Taiwanese and other international fishing fleets are dumping tuna and this is killing the tuna industry in the country because the imported tunas are being sold in the provincial wet markets at cheaper cost. This, it said, affects Filipino catch operators and the 40, 000 small tuna fisher folk in Genel Santos City and Sarangani province.

Hicap noted that the Fisheries Administrative Order (FAO) 195 issued in 1999 by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has allowed Taiwanese tuna-carrying fishing boats and other foreign fishing vessels to dock and unload their tuna in the Davao port.

Under FAO 195, Taiwanese tuna and other foreign fisheries products transported to the Philippines are supposed to be sold to institutional buyers. However, the Pamalakaya said the exporters and their local contacts managed to escape monitoring and bring the imported tuna to the domestic markets.

The Pamalakaya noted that a total of 1.2 metric tons or 120 thousand kilos of tuna are being unloaded by three to four Taiwanese fishing boats everyday at the Davao Fish Port. These Taiwanese tuna find their way to the markets in the region.

The Pamalakaya added that Taiwanese tuna is sold at P60 per kilo while the local tuna is priced at P120 per kilo.

The group warned that the massive dumping of heavily subsidized tuna imports would soon displace the tuna fishermen and their dependents.

"President Arroyo should decisively act on this matter in favor and in behalf of the small tuna operators and fishermen in Sarangani and General Santos City before it’s too late," Hicap said.

"The government must stop the Taiwanese and other tuna fish producing nations from dumping their surplus here in the name of the World Trade Organizations (WTO)," he also said.

The group pointed out that Philippine export products experience difficulty in entering foreign territories due to imposition of very high tariffs and implausible requirements.

The Pamalakaya said the European Union had pegged its tariff on Philippine tuna at 12 to 24 percent to protect its own tuna industry while the Philippines had drastically reduced tariffs for imported tuna to a range of five to 12 percent to accommodate surplus tuna from other countries under the Early Voluntary Sectoral Program (EVSP) of the WTO.